Sherry Dou with the recycled tyres she is using as planters in her front yard.

Sherry Dou tried to make her front garden her own and is now fighting to keep it that way.

Dou lives in a new housing development on Auckland's North Shore and wanted to add some colour to her garden in the form of painted tyres acting as planters.

But she's been asked to remove them by the association that runs the subdivision and the developer.

Bayside Residents' Association director and Fieldlaw Associates project manager Mark Mills has told Dou the tyres are rubbish, but she begs to differ.

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The Browns Bay resident says the planters are art, as they were decorated by her young son and many artists use tyres in their work.

"I also believe the Government encourages us to use second-hand tyres and other things, to protect the environment," Dou says.

Mills says Dou has been asked to remove the tyres in order to "maintain the overall quality of the development as it progresses".

Dou says she's put a lot of effort into the garden, which was mulch when she moved in a little over a year ago, and she takes pride in it.

Dou says, if she were forced to move the tyres, she would call police.

"If he cannot prove whether this is rubbish by law or city council, I will not accept it," she says.

"I feel really sad and I feel really unhappy because this is a freehold house. This is ridiculous I can't plant at my own house. It's ridiculous and unfair."

Mills says the residents' association is similar to a body corporate. It was a condition enforced by the former North Shore City Council when the housing subdivision was approved because it is down a private access road.

"The 'controller' (the board) of the Bayside Residents' Association has and will never breach the rules of the Bayside Residents' Association, it merely administers the rules for the protection of all of the residents within the development."

Dou says there are also several issues with the ongoing development and the governance, including rubbish from the development and silt blocking drains, and it's hard to find out about the residents' association's spend and meeting minutes.

She wonders why there is an association at all and says the freehold property isn't really freehold as residents have to pay both council rates and association levies.

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