City staff outlines plan to assess and enforce commercial landscape requirements

At an April work session, city staff presented a plan to identify and bring commercial properties into compliance with Highland Village’s landscape requirements.

The presentation, led by a city staff member identified in the meeting as Mr. Christen with Streets and Codes Manager Don Strange assisting, said staff are using a licensed arborist to compare current site conditions to approved landscape plans and then route findings to code enforcement for possible action. “Document, document, document,” Mr. Christen told council when describing the evidence-gathering approach.

Staff reported initial findings from research and field work: roughly 131 commercial water meters appear in the corridor areas (FM 407 and FM 2499), and about 80 platted commercial lots. Many older commercial sites predate planned-development (PD) approvals with detailed, council-approved landscape plans, so staff are compiling PD plans where available and handing one property at a time to an arborist for a condition assessment.

The arborist produces side-by-side comparisons of the approved plan and existing conditions; staff then determine whether a code violation exists. If a violation is found, staff described the enforcement sequence as opening a code case, providing notice, documenting the site with photos, and pursuing voluntary compliance. Staff said they have initiated seven commercial landscape cases so far; six remain active and one is closed after the property provided a plan or otherwise came into compliance.

Council and staff discussed enforcement tools and limits. Options described included notice-and-cure timelines, abatement with an administrative charge and lien placement, code-enforcement citations (the zoning code allows fines up to $2,000 per day), and civil action. Staff emphasized courts do not always uphold multiple daily citations: in one example a repeat violator entered a guilty plea on a single charge after the judge dismissed other citations. Staff also said revoking a certificate of occupancy is technically possible but unlikely.

Seasonality and plant survivability are factors staff said they will consider when setting compliance deadlines. Mr. Christen and others said a strict 30-day restoration requirement may be impractical for plantings installed in summer months when new plants are unlikely to survive; they proposed running the inspection program citywide once and then applying shorter compliance windows after properties are brought into compliance at least once.

Staff told council that an update of the zoning and related ordinances is budgeted. That work is expected to compile planned developments into a single document, update building and fire codes to current model-code versions, and resolve inconsistencies in the existing code (for example, differing grass-height thresholds in separate paragraphs). Council members asked whether an updated ordinance could trigger full-site landscape review when a property undertakes a certain percent of improvements; staff said the city can consider drafting such a trigger but will watch for any legislative changes before finalizing ordinance language.

Council members asked specific questions about older properties, including whether a development built under an earlier code can be compelled to meet current standards. Staff and legal-sounding remarks in the discussion explained that properties are generally held to the ordinance that applied when they were developed unless a new permit, redevelopment or other triggering action requires compliance with current standards.

The presentation included photographs of problem sites (Walmart, Highland Village Plaza and other corridor properties) and a sample arborist report showing required versus existing plant material. Staff said they will continue to compile plans, hand them to the arborist for assessment, and then turn validated reports over to code enforcement for case initiation.

Council made several suggestions during the discussion, including using volunteer groups that work on trees to encourage private owners to improve sites and targeting future ordinance language to allow broader review when significant improvements are proposed. Staff said they are locating plans and expect continued work with the city secretary’s office and planning staff to determine past ordinance versions that applied to older developments.

The presentation closed with staff saying implementation will require research into historical approvals and likely a staged approach: assessment and voluntary compliance first, ordinance updates and tougher thresholds later.