Amid drought, some Utah homeowners receive city notice to address brown lawn

WEST VALLEY CITY, Utah (KUTV) — Two sisters in Utah claim West Valley City served them with a courtesy notice to address the brown lawn in their front yard.

It basically states that your lawn is dying and yellow,” Amy Tieu said. “It’s counterintuitive. It’s doublespeak. We all know that we’re in a water crisis in the west and I think we need to have city ordinances and initiatives to really kind of reflect the current times.”

Amy and her sister, Sally, showed the notice they received. It’s a generic form in which code inspectors can check different boxes representing issues they may see in someone’s yard.

On this particular notice, the top box is checked. It reads, in part:

Landscaping must be installed in front yards (including parkways) and maintained with live plant materials in a healthy condition. All weeds and grasses on the property must be maintained so they do not exceed six inches in height.”

At the bottom of the form is a "comments" section, where a code enforcer can add their own comments.

It reads: “All landscaping must be green and growing, weed-free, and properly maintained. It doesn’t have to look like a golf course, just show some effort and maintenance. Your lawn is dead.”

The comment rubbed the Tieu sisters the wrong way and left the impression that the city wanted them to turn the lawn green again.

“Show some effort, your lawn is dead,'” repeated Sally. “I water it 25 minutes, three times a week, midnight to 4 a.m.”

KUTV reached out to West Valley City. Community Preservation Director Layne Morris said residents are encouraged to conserve water but not let lawns go completely dead.

That can be a fine line when you’re trying to save water,” said Morris. “It results in a lot of lawns that are yellowish and brownish and we support that.”

Morris said the big issue with the yard was the overgrowth of weeds. He said the box was checked at the top of the notice, and the mention of weeds in the comments gave an indication that the weeds needed to be addressed.

KUTV asked Morris about the part of the notice that mentioned the lawn and asked if it was a miscommunication of some kind.

Well, certainly that’s why the officers clearly put on there, please call me if you have any questions and that’s a pretty simple conversation,” Morris said.

Morris admitted to a communications issue between code enforcement and the Tieu sisters.

“What we encourage them to do, even in the courtesy notice, is to state explicitly what the problem is and it sounds like that wasn’t done to homeowner’s satisfaction,” Morris said.

That is a point the Tieu sisters agree on.

I think the messaging on that courtesy notice, ‘show some effort, your lawn’s dead’ did not communicate that they were telling me about the weeds,” Sally said.

Amy shared similar sentiments.

A courtesy violation could have gone better if it was in person or even if the comments reflected what they were really trying to achieve,” Amy said.