Marengo considers native landscape permits

MARENGO — Following a dispute about unmown weeds and pollinator plants, Marengo City Administrator Karla Marck researched native landscape ordinances and offered options to the city council during its Aug. 14 meeting.

The City’s nuisance ordinance requires that residents keep their grass shorter than six inches in height and that they keep weeds cut down.

Violators are issued nuisance abatement notices and must fix the problems or face a fine.

In June, Mark Siebrecht went before the city council to protest a nuisance abatement notice he’d received. His tall vegetation was a pollinator patch, not uncontrolled weeds, he said.

Siebrecht showed the council samples of weeds as opposed to native plants that provide for bees and other pollinators.

The City Council agreed that the plants on Siebrecht’s property were not a nuisance and could remain, but City Administrator Karla Marck noted that the city has nothing in its ordinances allowing a waiver for Siebrecht.

Marck researched native landscape ordinances from other towns and presented options to the city council Aug. 14.

The city could require permits, said Marck, or set requirements for pollinator gardens but not require permits.

Or the city can let residents grow what they want to, spelling out restrictions and maintenance requirements.

Councilwoman Karen Wayson-Kisling asked if towns around Marengo have such ordinances.

City Attorney Gage Kensler, who works in Belle Plaine, said he doesn’t know of one. Belle Plaine doesn’t have such an ordinance, he said.

Though the intention is to clarify what is allowed and what is not, an ordinance allowing exceptions to vegetation growth might make things less clear.

“I don’t know who we can monitor … this,” said Marck.

How will law enforcement — or neighbors — know that the plant growth they think is a nuisance is allowed by the city? “You’re going to have to have an expert,” said Marengo Mayor Adam Rabe.

Kensler said that problem would be solved if residents have to present specifics to city hall and obtain a permit beforehand. The permit would prove to law enforcement officers that the plants are acceptable according to the ordinance.

A property owner needs to tell the city “this is going to be sunflowers; this is going to be grass,” said Wayson-Kisling.

“It needs to be planned, manicured and maintained,” said Marck.

Councilman John Hinshaw said he’s not in favor of requiring permits. Nuisance abatement policies have a process for contesting abatement notices, he said, and it works.

A person who has a pollinator garden can go before the council to explain the situation after receiving an abatement notice, as happened in June when Siebrecht came before the council to explain that his tall vegetation was not “weeds” but “pollinators.”

“The whole process that we already have down on paper works,” said Hinshaw.

From an enforcement perspective, there’s nothing to keep the case from going to trial, said Kensler. A person can let the case go to court rather than contesting it before the city council. That costs the county money, Kensler said.

“I think what happened last time was great,” said Kensler, but it may not happen every time. It’s better to have the pollinator garden defined beforehand so residents don’t get nuisance abatement notices for them.

Taking the situation to court presents another problem said Police Chief Ben Gray. The city will mow a “nuisance” lawn after 48 hours if the resident has done it.

“If [Seibrecht] hadn’t chosen to come in, public works would have mowed it down,” said Gray.

“I think a permit is a good idea for structure,” said Wayson-Kisling. Not everyone is going to come as Siebrecht did, she said.

Though it is “kind of a pain” to have to get a permit, Siebrecht would have been really upset if he’d put in the effort to create a pollinator garden and the city mowed it down, Wayson-Kisling said.

Hinshaw said he doesn’t see any point in bringing people in to get permits for a hobby garden or for something they’ve been doing freely for years. What would the process be to get permits for all the town’s native-plant landscaping? he asked.

Gray said the city would publicize the requirement and give people time to go to city hall and get permits.

After that, if police notice a pollinator patch that isn’t registered or a resident reports an unmown lawn that is growing pollinators, the property owner would be advised to go to city hall to register it, said Gray.

“Like we do with a dog that’s not registered.”

The city is trying to prevent people from making their entire lawns immune to the nuisance ordinance by calling it a pollinator garden, said Marck.

While Hinshaw was against requiring permits and Councilman Travis Schlabach was absent, the remaining council members, Jenni Olson, Wayson-Kisling and Bill Kreis, seemed amenable to the idea.

Marck said she’d write up a draft for an ordinance requiring permits and noting how much space a pollinator plot is allowed to occupy and what types of plants will be allowed.

The draft will be presented at a future meeting.