Rowlett council weighs who must maintain screening walls; staff proposes PID pilot

Rowlett City Council members spent more than two hours on June 30 discussing who must maintain masonry screening walls, vegetation and subdivision entry features along arterial corridors and whether the city should pay to repair them.

City staff said the municipality’s current development and streets codes place maintenance responsibility on adjacent property owners or on homeowners associations and that prior city maintenance spending did not have a clear legal basis. “The city is not responsible for the maintenance of screening walls, vegetation, or entry features, even in the right of way,” City staff member David Hall told the council, summarizing the city’s development regulations and street-maintenance ordinance.

The conversation matters because several long stretches of screening wall along Dalrock and other corridors are deteriorating; staff said fully funding city maintenance of those corridors would likely cost “millions of dollars.” Council members discussed enforcement, revising ordinances, cost-share programs and…