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

Section 19-6(c) fills the gap left by the residential mowing rule in subsection (b): it covers any occupied or vacant, developed or undeveloped property in the county, including empty lots and unbuilt subdivision parcels. Owners must mow grass, weeds, and other foreign growth to twelve inches or less on any portion of the lot within 150 feet of an existing principal building or structure on a surrounding property. The same twelve-inch cap also reaches within 50 feet of a road right-of-way where the lot fronts a VDOT-system public street built as part of a subdivision, a private subdivision street maintained by a property owners' association, or a commercially or industrially zoned parcel abutting a VDOT Primary System road.

The County Administrator, working with Animal Control, can additionally order mowing on any vacant lot found to be breeding or harboring insects, reptiles, or rodents. Subsection (e) exempts actively farmed or grazed land zoned RC, RR, IL, or IG, protected wetlands, mature woodland with a four-foot canopy, land being reforested to four feet, and lots shielded from neighboring buildings by a fifty-foot wooded buffer meeting the Type 50 Transitional Buffer standard. Before billing an owner, the County Administrator must mail or personally deliver a written notice giving seven days to cut the growth; only one notice per property is required each growing season before county crews can mow and bill the cost.