MAPLE GLEN — The board of the Whispering Pines Estates Homeowners Association voted 7–2 Tuesday night to issue a formal violation notice to autumn, citing the season’s “flagrant and escalating use of unapproved reds, oranges, and a yellow that was never submitted for review.”

The notice, stapled to a maple tree at the community entrance, demands that autumn revert to Approved Neutral Shade B-12, a beige described in the bylaws as “unobtrusive, resale-friendly, and not trying to prove something.” Autumn has thirty days to comply.

“Section 14(b) is clear: exterior color changes require a written application and a ten-day comment period,” said board president Dale Wrenfield-Pruitt, reading from a binder. “Autumn did not file. Autumn simply began, in September, to be orange, with no regard for the neighbors.”

Fines begin at $75 per day and double each week, with a lien possible on “any tree, hillside, or sunset found to be in continued violation.” The board confirmed that the fine would be sent to autumn’s “last known address,” which it identified as “somewhere north.”

Residents had been complaining for weeks. One filed a grievance noting that a sugar maple on Birchwood Court had turned “an aggressive crimson” without notice, while another cited “a general golden cast on everything after 4 p.m.” that she said was “inconsistent with the community aesthetic.”

Dr. Marguerite Anselm-Oyelaran, a senior fellow in deciduous compliance at the Institute for Seasonal Conformity and Lawn-Adjacent Studies, said the board’s position was legally defensible. “Leaves are, technically, exterior modifications,” she said. “If a homeowner can’t paint their shutters teal without a hearing, I fail to see why a ginkgo gets to go full butter-yellow on a Tuesday.”

Dissenting board members Phil Okonkwo-Hatch and Renata Voss argued the board lacked jurisdiction over the natural world. “I’m just saying we might be reaching,” Okonkwo-Hatch said. He was reminded that the board had previously fined a rainstorm for “pooling” and a family of geese for “unregistered occupancy.”

“Autumn can have its season, but it can have it in a color from the approved palette.”

Wrenfield-Pruitt acknowledged that enforcement could prove difficult, as the leaves are scheduled to fall off on their own in November, which the board described as “a separate violation involving debris.” He added that a compliance officer would begin patrolling the neighborhood with a clipboard and a color swatch.

By Wednesday morning, the situation had already worsened. Overnight, a hickory on Cedar Loop turned a shade the board described as “defiantly bronze,” and a single sweetgum was reported to be “doing purple.”

The board has scheduled an emergency meeting to discuss winter, which it expects to be “white, which is at least on the list.”

Autumn could not be reached for comment, though a spokesperson for the wind said it had “no knowledge of any of this” and would continue to “do what it does.”