St. Cloud lawn care rules change: What to know about new fees, grass height requirement
The St. Cloud City Council on July 7 approved adjusting a city ordinance to lower the grass length limit from 10 inches to eight inches.
The change is to comply with a state statute, which states the limit is eight inches.
St. Cloud Health Director Matt O'Brien told city council members the city patrols grass length and issues citations after looking into resident complaints.
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"How the procedure has historically gone is we would receive a complaint or identify long grass," O'Brien said. "We (then) take a tape measurer and measure the long grass to ensure that we are (above the) inches in our ordinance."
If a property's grass is above the length requirement, O'Brien said property owners are given a notice with a period of time to correct it. If the owner doesn't make corrections, they would abate, meaning the city would coordinate lawn care to comply with local policies.
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"What this is doing is adding an additional tool in there where we can issue an administrative citation in addition to our ability to abate the violation, and then they get a $75 administrative fee on top of the abatement charge that we pay — it's generally a contractor we will hire, they'll bill us, we'll pay the bill along with the $75 administrative fee."
With the change, the city can issue an administrative citation for the violation regardless of abatement. This would include another $100 fine in addition to the abatement fee and associated costs.
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St. Cloud City Attorney Renee Courtney told the St. Cloud Times the property owner would be notified of the violation, and if it isn't corrected in the time specified in the notice, then the property owner would be fined a $100 administrative citation.
If the violation continues after that, Courtney said the city may move forward with abatement. The property owner would then pay another $75 administrative fee for abatement alongside the costs to abate, such as the contractor's bill.
"A property owner may have to pay all three if the violation continues and the property owner does not come into compliance," Courtney wrote in an email.
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Corey Schmidt covers politics and courts for the St. Cloud Times. He can be reached at cschmidt@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on St. Cloud Times: New St. Cloud lawn rules: What to know about fees, fines, grass length
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