Eden Prairie, MN Parking Rules: Abandoned Vehicles (2026)

Eden Prairie City Code Section 9.36 makes it unlawful to abandon a motor vehicle on any public or private property without the consent of the person in control of that property. The code defines abandon to mean permitting the vehicle to remain for a continuous period beyond forty eight hours, and it borrows the definition of motor vehicle from Minnesota Statutes 1990 Chapter 169. The forty eight hour clock runs whether the vehicle sits on a street, a parking lot, or someone else's yard, and consent from whoever controls that property is the only defense.

A separate provision, Section 9.37, reaches vehicles that never move at all: it is unlawful to park or store any unlicensed, unregistered or inoperable motor vehicle, or its parts, on any property, public or private, unless it is housed inside a building, and the code declares that storage a nuisance outright, with no forty eight hour grace period. The only carve out in Section 9.37 is for a disposal area operated or designated by a governmental unit. Neither section spells out its own penalty, so the citywide default in Section 1.03 controls: violating a City Code provision is punished as a petty misdemeanor unless the specific chapter says otherwise.

Because Section 9.37's nuisance language covers junk vehicles the moment they appear, a car that is inoperable or unregistered does not get the two day grace period that a merely abandoned but still-licensed vehicle receives under Section 9.36; owners who want to avoid a citation need to register, license, or move the vehicle, or store it fully inside a garage or similar structure.