My petty neighbor never liked our garden project to turn my tree lawn into a wildflower meadow garden. Now she reported me to the city and I got this violation notice. Should I hire a lawyer? Or do I need to turn my beautiful garden back to lawn? Thank you
by Single-Highway-5509
18 Comments
What’s a “tree” lawn?
Depends on where you are geographically!
Ps what is a tree lawn
Here the section they are referring to. I’m not a lawyer so it’s a bit confusing as they don’t explicitly state that a garden is a nuisance or that you can only have grass. So I don’t know, maybe call or stop in the city office and see if anyone can explain the rule and details generally, maybe not mentioning that you got a violation and you could get lucky and get a different answer and that helps.
Code:
No owner or occupant of an abutting lot or lands shall fail to maintain the tree lawn abutting his or her property or fail to keep it free from any nuisance. For purposes of this section, “nuisance” means any object or condition that obstructs, impairs or destroys the reasonable use a tree lawn by persons traveling thereon in the ordinary mode, including, but not limited to, rubbish, garbage, dirt, paper, stones, wood, glass or refuse material of any kind. For purposes of this section, “maintained” means to keep in good repair and free from nuisance, as defined herein, including, but not limited to, mowing grass and/or planting sod or grass seeds and repairing cracks or unevenness in concrete or any other tree lawn surface.
>1707.12 TREE LAWNS. (b) No owner or occupant of an abutting lot or lands shall fail to maintain the tree lawn abutting his or her property or fail to keep it free from any nuisance. For purposes of this section, “nuisance” means any object or condition that obstructs, impairs or destroys the reasonable use a tree lawn by persons traveling thereon in the ordinary mode, including, but not limited to, rubbish, garbage, dirt, paper, stones, wood, glass or refuse material of any kind. For purposes of this section, “maintained” means to keep in good repair and free from nuisance, as defined herein, including, but not limited to, mowing grass and/or planting sod or grass seeds and repairing cracks or unevenness in concrete or any other tree lawn surface.
Gardens themselves aren’t specifically prohibited, but depending upon what is planted it might obstruct.
Also make sure this is real and not just something the neighbor sent.
I just checked that ordinance. It only applies to the strip of land between the sidewalk and the road. So yeah, only grass there.
As for the rest of your lawn, there are currently no regulations that I have found in your city against growing a garden. You can legally grow a garden in place of lawn grass in Parma—as long as it looks intentional, tidy, and you’ve addressed any permits for structures. Just be aware that neighbor complaints could trigger a response, so present it thoughtfully and keep it well-kept.
Ordinances for Parma, OH regarding the tree lawn (the strip of lawn in front of the sidewalk). https://codelibrary.amlegal.com/codes/parma/latest/Parma_oh/0-0-0-217458
Not sure what state you’re in but at least in Colorado we have a law that protects people who want to xeriscape their lawns. Maybe your state has something similar on the books?
“Tree Lawn” is a Cleveland OH area saying/descriptor
OP, talk to the city supervisor to see if you can compromise and put in micro clover or something really short that doesn’t require mowing. And when you have to rip out our gorgeous flowers, make sure you give a huge bouquet to your pita neighbor.
I’d call the city and make sure its real. and then if its real talk to them about it. If it is real, its possible they lied about what it looks like and no one bothered to observe themselves.
Here’s a potential compromise. I don’t live in Ohio, but this might work. If you plant low-growing green lawn alternatives, your hellstrip would be green, and you’d have a lower maintenance yard.
Here are two sources of plants like that:
Ohio Prairie Nursery
[https://www.opnseed.com/collections/eco-friendly-lawn-alternatives](https://www.opnseed.com/collections/eco-friendly-lawn-alternatives)
Stepables
[https://www.stepables.com/](https://www.stepables.com/)
If there are trees in the strip, they would shade out many native plants, and the trees’ root systems might compete with them for water. It doesn’t sound like a situation that would occur naturally in a meadow.
Plant Bamboo. Bamboo is a grass.
I’m sorry your neighbor sucks. This is why I’ll never move back to city limits
The wording seems absurd in the notice, but if it’s referring to the strip of land between the road and the footpath/sidewalk, some cities advocate keeping this clear for pedestrians to walk through which does make sense. u/LordNeco posted the precise wording of the rule in the comments, and based on my interpretation of it, the legality of planting your flowers here will come down to how much of a “nuisance” it is to walk through wildflowers. Personally I’d put up a bit of resistance. It will depend how much energy you have!
You can try on your own. It’s a roll of the dice. Depends on how much discretion the inspector has in practice and how much of an axe they have to grind. You might get someone who understands. But if they don’t get it, you need a lawyer asap
Lava rock the fucking thing then
My city paid us to convert ours to drought tolerant gardens. What a dumb rule to enforce
I’d go to the city and ask them for a pass. This seems more like an automated message.