Eagan, MN Property Maintenance: Vacant Lot Maintenance (2026)

Eagan City Code § 10.21, Subd. 3 applies to any lot with a building and to any vacant lot, outlot, or parcel under one acre without a building, while exempting undeveloped lots, outlots or parcels over one acre and any privately owned land encumbered by a stormwater basin, drainageway, wetland, wetland buffer or public water. Covered vacant parcels must be established with turf grasses, permitted vegetation, or woodland compatible with the site's soil, slope and shade conditions, completed within eight months of a certificate of occupancy or 12 months of a building permit for any improved portion, and the owner bears the cost of supplemental watering until it takes hold.

Once established, vegetation on a covered lot may not exceed eight inches, measured from the base at ground level to the tip of each stalk, stem, blade or leaf, except for permitted vegetation other than turf grass that naturally grows taller due to its cultivar. The height cap does not apply to a wetland on the city's official inventory, a drainage pond or ditch, pastureland used for permitted hoofed animals, land that has never been graded, mowed or otherwise disturbed, steeply sloped ground unsafe to mow, or an area maintained as a registered managed natural landscape or woodland.

Noxious weeds, vegetation that violates the section, and any unmanaged vegetation, meaning diseased, dead, overgrown or invasive growth, are declared public nuisances the owner must abate; if the owner does not, the city can perform the work and assess the cost against the property under the chapter's abatement procedures.