Rochester Hills, MI Invasive Plant Rules: Prohibited Species (2026)

Section 18-532 modifies Section 202 of the adopted International Property Maintenance Code to define 'Noxious weeds' as Canada thistle, dodders, mustards, wild carrot, bindweed, perennial sow thistle, hoary alyssum, ragweed, poison ivy, poison sumac, oxeye daisies, goldenrod, 'all types of exotic invasive plant species,' grass or weeds over eight inches tall, or any other plant the city determines is deleterious to health, safety or public welfare or a common nuisance, while excluding trees, shrubs or plantings in defined landscaped garden beds. The same section modifies Section 302.4, Weeds, to require every exterior property area, including the adjacent right-of-way, to be kept free of noxious weeds and of weeds or plant growth over eight inches, and bars an owner from letting a formerly seeded or sodded lawn revert to a natural vegetated area that gives an abandoned appearance.

Section 302.4.1 authorizes the city to publish a notice each March and, after May 1, to send any officer, inspector or authorized agent onto noncomplying land as many times as necessary to cut or destroy noxious weeds, covering any lot in a subdivision that is 60 percent built out, land abutting an improved street for 100 feet of depth, and land abutting a park, school or occupied residential property for the same depth.