(A) Maintenance required. Property owners are responsible for the perpetual maintenance of all landscaped areas on their lot and adjoining public right-of-way, except any portion(s) of the parkway maintained by another entity. The owners of lots which do not have properly maintained landscaped areas will be subject to penalties as set forth in this chapter.
(1) Lack of maintenance shall constitute a violation of this article. The property owner and/or occupant or lessee shall be held jointly and severally liable for any infraction of the requirements set forth in this chapter.
(2) In the event a plant specified as required on an approved landscape plan dies or is removed, the property owner, occupant or lessee, and/or city are jointly responsible and shall replace the plant in the next planting season with one of a similar species with a similar size as specified in the approved landscape plan.
(3) Landscape plans shall designate whether plant material is to be kept in either a natural state (minimal pruning) or a formal state (regularly trimmed and pruned to a sculpted appearance). Plant materials shall be maintained as designated.
(B) Irrigation system maintenance required. Irrigation systems must be maintained and replaced as necessary to continue to conserve water. Detection and repair of leaky or broken pipes, valves, and fittings and malfunctioning and/or misaligned heads, emitters, and bubblers must be part of a regular maintenance program for the site. Automatic Irrigation Controllers are recommended to be reset a minimum of four times a year (spring, summer, fall, and winter) to adjust for plant water requirements that vary according to season. All irrigation systems shall be subject to the Uniform Building Code requirements of the city and shall be installed only as approved by permits issued by the Department of Community Development.
(C) Maintenance responsibility. All landscape areas must meet minimum landscape standards as set forth herein, and shall be maintained by home owners associations, maintenance districts, improvements districts, private individuals or companies, and/or the City Parks and Recreation Department and Public Works Department. For any streetscape or basin landscaped in excess of the minimum standards, the city will not be responsible for maintenance.
(D) City maintenance responsibility. The City of Yuma is responsible to ensure that maintenance is performed on all landscape areas located within dedicated parkways, medians, and retention basins. For any areas the City of Yuma agrees to maintain, a plant palette and design intent document shall be provided to the department in charge of maintenance.
('80 Code, App. A, § 181) (Ord. 583, passed 9-16-1952; Ord. 2584, passed 9-16-1992; Ord. O96-77, passed 8-7-1996; Ord. O2001-93, passed 11-20-2001; Ord. O2010-32, passed 7-7-2010; Ord. O2010-57, passed 11-17-2010; Ord. O2017-024, passed 8-2-2017) Penalty, see § 154-999