Fayetteville, NC Invasive Plant Rules: Prohibited Species (2026)

9, Maintenance of Landscaping Materials, makes the property owner responsible for all landscape areas outside the public right-of-way that were installed to satisfy an approved Landscape Plan or Alternative Landscape Plan. Those areas must present a healthy, orderly appearance free of refuse and debris, and any required plant that dies, is seriously damaged, or is removed must be replaced to the same standards. Subsection d, Removal of Invasive Species, layers a specific duty on top of that general upkeep rule: regular maintenance must include regular removal of invasive plant species, and for compliance purposes those species are considered removed once they are no longer living in the tree canopy, a practical field test rather than a demand for total eradication.

The obligation does not expire at closing. The ordinance states that subsequent property owners are required to maintain this condition, so a buyer takes the lot subject to whatever invasive-removal work the seller left undone. B's site-landscaping and tree-preservation framework, it reaches parcels that had to file a Landscape Plan in the first place, chiefly commercial, multifamily, mixed-use and other nonresidential development; most single-family detached lots and Downtown-district parcels are carved out of the parallel tree-preservation and street-tree rules elsewhere in the same article. 10, Monitoring of Compliance.