Businesses Get Break on Landscape Ordinance

An Abilene, Texas city employee works to dredge an area near railroad tracks in the city to improve drainage.

Interminable drought and heat may kill landscaping required at businesses around Abilene, Texas but city officials say they’re not taking a hard-line approach in enforcing the ordinance.

Businesses are required to have a certain number of trees, shrubs and other “vegetative areas,” according to the city’s most recent version of its Land Development Code, which was approved last summer. Typically, only businesses building a new building or those performing major renovations to their existing site must meet the requirements.

But with rainfall scant and the cost of watering landscaping exorbitant, some areas of town are browner and yellower than allowable by ordinance.

Ed McRoy, assistant director of planning and development services, said that although business owners whose vegetation has died eventually will have to replace the plants to be in compliance, they don’t necessarily have to right now, considering the current weather pattern.

“We can delay planting until a reasonable time when plants have a chance to thrive,” McRoy said. “The purpose of the code is to improve the look of the public corridors these businesses line, so we want the plants to be healthy and alive.”

The code notes that, as with this year, Abilene is no stranger to droughts. As a result, the city allows xeriscaping, which McRoy said “emphasizes the use of landscaping that use more drought-tolerant plants.” The code also specifies that nonresidential landscaped areas be irrigated, which should help keep many plants alive.

If the city receives a complaint about dead plants at a business, McRoy said he and his team approach the business to discuss potential action.

“If there's a situation where replanting or replacing the landscaping might be subject to problems because of extreme drought, we'll work with people to delay the planting,” McRoy said.