‘Lawn Police’ May Be Coming to Palmdale
Rows of neatly trimmed lawns are not the typical picture of the high desert. It’s a place where year-round winds--strong enough to blow ravens backward--scour the sand and whip vacant lots into dust bowls.
But Palmdale wants to spruce up its image. The city thinks lawn police could do the trick. And they could soon be right next door.
The City Council is set to impose rules that would make it illegal for residents to ignore their landscaping. The idea is that the fastest-growing community in Southern California deserves better than Bermuda grass and dirt clods. Yards should not double as parking lots. Weeds should be shorter than trees.
Nursery-quality greenery--or at least painted pebbles--should be the rule in Palmdale, just as it is in the lower elevations, city officials say.
Today, infractions here are easy to spot. In one older east side neighborhood, 3-foot weeds cast shadows on a Harley-Davidson parked at the front door. In a newer tract on the west side, a For Sale sign swings lopsided from a single hinge in a post embedded into dead sod.
Those eyesores--and about 3,000 others across town--prompted Palmdale to join a number of suburban boomtowns, such as Rialto and Rancho Cucamonga, that require residents to “keep up with the Joneses.” The codes often divide communities, as they have already in Palmdale, where the city intends to enforce the law by getting neighbors to snitch on each other.
Violators of the ordinance, which is expected to be adopted Wednesday and take effect 30 days later, could face fines of as much as $1,000 or six months in jail.
Such laws are increasingly common in outlying suburbs. The rules are upshots of age-old noxious weed bans in force in just about every city and town across the nation, said Mary Meyer, professor of horticultural science at the University of Minnesota. “Most of us have good stewards in mind when we see mowed lawns,” she said.
For more than a decade, self-proclaimed environmentalists who challenge the sanctity of the all-American lawn have fought the Palmdale-style laws. The National Wildlife Federation, which encourages nature-friendly landscaping, estimates that dozens of yard battles have spilled into courts around the country.
Now the rules and disputes are stretching to the farthest horizons of sprawl, including to Rialto, which adopted a lawn ordinance in 1999.
Rod Taylor, Rialto’s director of development services, blamed some of the troubles there on a large percentage of freeway-riding residents .
“We have so many people who commute into Orange County or Los Angeles County to work, so there’s a correlation of how much time they have to care for their home and mow lawns,” he said.
Rialto patterned its law after one in nearby Rancho Cucamonga, which adopted a lawn ordinance five years ago. .
“The vast majority of these kinds of issues have been resolved on a voluntary basis,” said Rancho Cucamonga building official Bill Makshanoff.
Disputes over lawns frequently stem from squabbles between neighbors, said Anne M. Hanchek of Portland, Ore., a retired horticulture professor.
” People will try to push things,” she said, recalling an incident in Minnetonka, Minn., that ended only when the offending “naturalist” moved out of town.
Some say they fear that similar wars will erupt in Palmdale.
“If a neighbor gets fed up--say they don’t like your music or the way you dress--they’re going to be calling the city and [complaining] about your yard,” said Ryan Hadley, 40, who opposes the law even though his own yard is well groomed and perfumed with a rose hedge.
Other critics say the Palmdale law could impose burdens on residents who are already struggling with increasing utility costs and potential water shortages.
Marta Williamson, a 53-year-old disabled widow who is president of the OldTown Homeowners Assn., was cited last month for a safety code violation after she rolled four old tires out for pickup onto her mostly barren frontyard, deeply shaded by a giant fir.
She called the law “an invasion of people’s privacy. “
Under the ordinance, a lawn is not a requirement but neatness is, says the law’s chief proponent, Palmdale Mayor Jim Ledford.
Barren or weed-choked frontyards are “the No. 1 issue raised by neighborhoods,” said Ledford, who is leading the move to beautify the community. After three months of heated community debate, the council in April voted 3 to 2 to adopt amendments to city codes requiring all owners of single-family residential lots to landscape front and sideyards visible from public streets. Lots larger than an acre are exempt.
Those not in compliance will be given 18 months to install some sort of landscaping, whether it be sprinklers and lawns or pebbles and yucca or other plants suitable to the High Desert.
Financial assistance will be offered to seniors, disabled residents and low-income families who cannot afford the cost of landscaping, according to a city report. Aid may be needed for up to half of about 3,000 houses, which could cost from $750,000 to $2.25 million.
Despite a series of compromises, the issue still divides the community.
“This is incredible,” said Councilman Richard H. Norris.
“We’re the High Desert. We can’t expect to be like the San Fernando Valley and Los Angeles.”
Raul Figueroa, 39, is on the other side of the fence. A neighborhood watch captain, the aerospace engineer is among residents pushing for new rules.
“You get a broken-window effect,” he said, gesturing toward several vacant neighboring homes with dead lawns. “You have one house that stands out because it is all trashed. “
Figueroa, who put a weeping willow, rosebushes and a rock garden in his simple yard drove a visitor throughout town, pointing out the shopping centers and homes springing up all over. “ I envision us being like Valencia some day,” he said.
Ledford and others say new rules are necessary because the city has no law to compel residents to maintain their yards other than for health and safety reasons, such as the fire hazard created by 2-foot weeds. That code has been enforced only three times in the last 10 years, yet about 8% of yards are below par, city officials said.
Much of the deterioration occurred as a large number of homes were vacated or rented out during the last decade when the community was hit hard by the recession and aerospace layoffs, they said.
But resident Lisa Morgenstern said she fled from strict homeowner association rules in Irvine and objects to the city “telling people what their yard has to look like.” In a letter to the council, she wrote: “While I am not planning to plant tomatoes in my frontyard any time soon here, I feel strongly that I should have the right to do so, if I wanted to.”
