Highland Village staff outline plan to enforce commercial landscaping rules, cite limits from older approvals

City staff told the Highland Village City Council that they have begun a phased effort to assess and enforce commercial landscaping requirements across the city, but said the work is limited by staffing, historical approvals and legal constraints.

Scott Christen, a city staff member presenting at the council’s April work session, said the city has been compiling approved landscape plans and has engaged a licensed arborist to compare conditions on site with those plans. “We took that and we kind of ran with it a little bit and … we started to develop a plan,” Christen said, adding that the city had “one field code enforcement officer” responsible for many duties.

The city’s process, as described by Christen, starts with locating an approved landscape plan for each commercial development, supplying that plan to an arborist for a condition assessment, then having the code enforcement officer review the arborist’s report to determine whether a violation exists. If a violation is found, the city would open a code enforcement case and issue notice, Christen said. He described the expectation that, once a site is restored, future inspections could be largely cursory and that the city intends to implement annual inspections of commercial properties.

Why it matters: major commercial corridors in Highland Village, especially along FM 407 and FM 2499, contain older developments whose approved landscape plans and the zoning rules that applied at the time of development determine what the city can legally require today. That means many properties built under older rules cannot be compelled to meet newer standards unless they submit a new plan or trigger redevelopment.

Christen told the council the city’s initial research found roughly 131 commercial water meters (some may be for irrigation) and about 80 platted commercial lots; staff have located many landscape plans for planned development districts (PDs) and are compiling those files for assessment. The city has opened seven commercial landscape cases to date; Christen said one has closed after voluntary compliance and that commercial landscape cases make up about 15% of open code cases.

Staff discussed enforcement tools and limits. Christen said the city documents sites with photos, posts notices and, if necessary, can abate and place liens to recover costs. He said code citations may carry fines up to $2,000 per day and that the administrative abatement fee cited in the presentation was $250 per abatement. The council and staff also discussed practical limits tied to planting seasons: Christen noted the city will be reluctant to require 30‑day replacements during summer months when new plantings are unlikely to survive.

Several council members pressed for clarity on how the city can proceed with older developments. City legal staff described the standard municipal limit: properties are generally required to comply with the zoning and landscaping regulations that applied when the development received its certificate of occupancy, and they become nonconforming if later ordinances change. As a result, substantial research may be required to determine which rules applied to a given site and whether a property has an approved landscape plan on file.

Council members and staff discussed options the city can pursue going forward: requiring new or amended landscape plans when a property seeks a permit for substantial renovation or expansion; drafting ordinance changes that would open a site to review if an owner alters a specified percentage of the property; and using volunteer groups, such as local tree or landscape organizations, to encourage property owners to repair or replace plantings voluntarily. Christen said the city budget includes funding to compile PDs and update the zoning and building code materials and that the city is seeking a consultant to help with an ordinance rewrite.

Christen and others urged the council to weigh enforcement priorities against city resources. “We only have one field code enforcement officer, and that’s a large task,” Christen said. He repeated the city preference for voluntary compliance over punitive measures and noted limits imposed by courts: he described a recent repeat offender case in which multiple citations were issued but the judge dismissed most and convicted on only one count.

Staff said they will continue to locate historical plans, prioritize assessments with the arborist, and return to council with proposed ordinance language and implementation details once consultant work is underway and the state legislative session clarifies local regulatory authority.

The council did not take a formal vote on landscaping enforcement during the session; staff sought direction and confirmed funding is budgeted for ordinance work and consultant procurement.