Hope for a faster resolution to excessively high grass and weeds is here for Johnson County residents living with frustration amidst a sea of green.
Though county officials acknowledge even more tweaks are needed for the weed and vegetation ordinance, a few steps were taken last week to begin to address frustrations of residents, county highway director Luke Mastin said.
The ordinance takes enforcement of the ordinance away from the highway department and assigns the duty to the planning department instead. This change puts enforcement into the hands of a department that is better equipped for code enforcement, Mastin said.
The county’s planning department already oversees other code enforcement activities for the county, such as investigating unsafe structure complaints and overseeing building permits.
The planning department started taking calls for vegetation complaints on July 13, after the commissioners approved the change to the ordinance at their afternoon meeting. The highway department will finish out the process for complaints issued prior to July 13, Mastin said.
The other change to the ordinance streamlines the enforcement process by reducing the time it takes to address complaints. The current ordinance requires two certified mail notifications and three in-person inspections by a county employee before the complaint can be addressed.
The old ordinance also required a county employee to get a response from the often absent or deceased property owners before proceeding, according to Mastin.
“What should be a 15 process turned into a lot more because of all the effort that we had to put into finding property owners,” Mastin said, adding that the old ordinance had the county doing work beyond what state statute requires for a code enforcement activity like this.
Under the new ordinance, only one 10-day standard mail notification is required. While county employees will still do their best to reach the property owner within the 10-day period, they can proceed with an order to mow the property and place a lien on the property of about $100 to $300, depending on the size of the yard, Mastin said.
The time it takes to address a violation is particularly of the essence because a complaint cannot be filed unless the vegetation is two feet tall or higher under the ordinance.
The height was not changed in this ordinance update, but lowering it will likely be under consideration in the future, county planning director David Hittle said, adding that he expects to propose additional changes to the ordinance after about a year of data gathering and enforcement.
