Enforcing Lawn Maintenance: Huntsville City Cracks Down

Photo byCarl TrondersonUnsplash

“Grass season” is winding down in Huntsville but that’s not stopping the city from cracking down on overgrown yards. At the last council meeting, city leaders put a lien on 25 different property owners they say aren’t keeping their yards properly maintained.

The ordinance requires grass and weeds to be below eight inches in residential neighborhoods and 14 inches in commercial areas.

Community development manager Scott Erwin says they enforced this rather strictly this year.

He said most of these property owners live out of state, so they weren’t able to maintain their yards as effectively.

The goal, he said, is for homeowners to maximize their property values and continue to make Huntsville beautiful.

“If you’re trying to sell your property and your next store neighbor isn’t trying to sell theirs and it violates city ordinance, that affects you,” Erwin said. “It affects your property value. We try to make sure everyone’s aware that this is to protect our neighborhoods, our residents, and make sure we have a stronger quality of life.”

He said with the season cooling down, they’ll look at enforcing other aspects of the ordinance.

“If there are properties that are again neglected in a neighborhood, it’s a sort of domino effect where one house becomes unkept with rotten wood and peeling paint, so we make sure the owners are aware of those issues and can be corrected,” he said. “We do that year round and that’s what we’ll move into once grass season slows down.”