Bowie, MD Property Maintenance: Vacant Lot Maintenance (2026)

City Code § 10-1 makes it unlawful to throw, deposit, scatter or drop refuse, branches, brush, leaves or grass clippings on any vacant lot, City easement, or open space within Bowie. Separately, § 15-2 declares trash, waste material, garbage, or grass, weeds, briars and brush growing more than eight inches tall a public nuisance on any property adjoining a street, alley or lane and within 200 feet of it. Under § 15-3B, when a public nuisance exists the City Manager or a designee must notify the owner, tenant or person in possession by posting notice on the front of the property, giving seven days, including Sundays and holidays, to remove it.

If the nuisance is not removed and no written objection is filed with the City Manager before the notice expires, § 15-4A lets the City remove it directly and assess the cost as a lien on the property, collectible the same way as real property taxes, or pursue a suit at law. An owner who receives a notice may instead file written objections and, under § 15-4B, appear before the Administrative Review Board at its next regular meeting for a public hearing under the Chapter 1A procedures; the Board may then recommend to the City Manager that the notice be sustained, dismissed or modified, subject to City Council notice if the Manager rejects that recommendation.

Chapter 1, § 1-6C(8) makes the Chapter 15 nuisance violations municipal infractions rather than ordinary misdemeanors, and a related overgrowth standard in § 5-7B(1)(d) separately bars vegetation that screens a property from street view or blocks address numerals.