Frederick County, VA Property Maintenance: Vacant Lot Maintenance (2026)

Chapter 122 actually contains two weed provisions, and they cover different ground. Section 122-5 sets a specific 18-inch trigger and 3-inch cutback standard, but only inside platted residential subdivisions zoned RP, R4, R5 or MH1, and only for growth within 100 feet of a dwelling. Section 122-6, by contrast, reaches 'any lot in any platted subdivision' with no distance-from-a-dwelling requirement and no zoning-district limit, and it does not set a specific height. Instead it bans letting weeds and undergrowth grow to the point that they endanger the public health and welfare of the community, a standard aimed at genuinely vacant or neglected lots that Section 122-5's 100-foot rule might not reach.

The Health Officer or Officers of the County administer Section 122-6, and the section expressly authorizes them to swear out criminal warrants for violations, a more direct enforcement path than the notice-and-abatement process that governs most of the chapter. Because the section sits inside Chapter 122's general nuisance scheme, a conviction still draws the chapter-wide penalty in Section 122-10, and an owner who ignores a County Court order to abate faces a new offense for every day the condition persists. Frederick County residents outside Winchester, Stephens City and Middletown with a truly vacant, undeveloped lot overgrown with weeds and brush should expect this section, not the 18-inch rule, to be the one the County applies.