Rock Hill, SC Property Maintenance: Vacant Lot Maintenance (2026)

Rock Hill's vacant-lot rule sits inside its 2021 IPMC adoption and is administered by Neighborhood Services Inspections. Unlike many municipalities that apply a single height cap to all parcels, Rock Hill recognizes two tiers: 12 inches maximum for improved properties (lots with a residence, accessory structure, or commercial building) and 18 inches maximum for vacant lots that have never been improved. The higher unimproved-lot cap reflects the reality that virgin tracts at the City's growing edges (Rock Hill's population is approximately 75,000, sitting in fast-growing York County) carry meadow grasses and successional vegetation that take more than a foot to reach mowing height. The notice-and-ticket schedule is identical to other property-maintenance violations: the City issues a single courtesy notice per calendar year with 7 days to come into compliance; the second offense (or failure to cure) advances to a 7-day Notice of Violation, then tickets every 7 days at $25, then $50, then $100, with a maximum of $250 before the case is summoned to Environmental Court. For absentee owners (a common pattern on speculative vacant lots), the City does not chase the owner for compliance - Neighborhood Services dispatches a contractor to cut the weeds and bills the owner directly under SC Code §5-7-30's municipal-nuisance abatement authority. The same enforcement framework applies to debris accumulation, illegal dumping on vacant lots (see illegal-dumping subcategory), and structural conditions on any vacant building under the IPMC's unsafe-structure provisions.