Kingsport, TN Landscaping Rules: Weed Ordinances (2026)

Kingsport Code § 106-50 sets the height line at 12 inches or more above the ground for any improved land or premises within the city. The duty falls on the owner, lienholder, occupant, agent, firm, corporation, lessee or anyone with control or management of the property, and the code declares a violating condition a public nuisance. Improved land under section 106-49 means any privately owned parcel with a building, structure, dwelling or house on it, whether inhabited or vacant, and it includes the yard, grounds, walk, driveway, porch and steps. It also covers a private parcel with any parking area, paved or graveled area or private roadway.

The covered vegetation is broad. Section 106-49 defines grass, weeds and uncultivated vegetation to include weeds, grasses, plants, bushes, poison oak, poison ivy and other vegetation not cultivated, whether living or dead. Trees, ornamental shrubbery, ornamental grass, flowers, garden vegetables and plants customarily cultivated by farmers or gardeners fall outside the definition, as does vegetation recommended by the state agricultural extension service for conservation or erosion control.

Unimproved land follows a different test in section 106-51. The 12-inch rule applies there only if the growth is within 50 feet of any dwelling or occupied building, within 15 feet of any public street or alley, a harbor for rats, mosquitoes or other vermin, a fire hazard under an adopted fire code, or growing in cracks or paved and graveled areas where it is visible from a public way.

Section 106-53 makes it the duty of every owner or occupant to cut down and remove the growth, including up to and along the traveled portion of the street or public right-of-way next to the lot. Section 106-52 separately bars plant growth that makes adjoining streets, alleys or sidewalks unsafe or impedes traffic. Section 106-54 exempts undeveloped wooded areas where tree growth exceeds ten feet in height, government-owned land and street rights-of-way, streambeds or banks, densely wooded parcels, erosion-control slopes, steep or wet ground that wheeled equipment cannot mow (excluding a dwelling's curtilage), and land zoned or actively used for agriculture.