If your neighbor’s dead oak is leaning toward your roof, Calvert County may soon stop being the place you call about it.
The county’s Department of Planning and Zoning wants to drop the “dangerous tree” provision from Chapter 92 of the county code, the property maintenance chapter that also covers trash, overgrown lots and abandoned vehicles. The reason, Chief Enforcement Officer Chris Breedlove told the Board of County Commissioners at a Sept. 29 work session, is that no one on the county payroll is qualified to make the call.
“We don’t have anybody that’s certified to deem a tree dangerous in the county,” Breedlove said. He said he checked with every county department. “We had one, he retired.”
Commissioners agreed by consensus to have staff draft the changes for a public hearing. No vote has been taken.
Why the county wants out of tree calls
Breedlove said Calvert and Montgomery are the only Maryland counties that enforce a tree ordinance. Everywhere else, he said, a dispute over a neighbor’s tree is a civil matter between property owners.
The bigger worry is liability. “Just because a tree is dead doesn’t mean it’s dangerous. Just because it’s alive doesn’t mean it’s not dangerous,” Breedlove said. If an inspector told a resident a tree looked fine and it fell two days later and hurt someone, he said, “that puts the liability on the county.”
One commissioner said the change leaves residents in a bind when the problem tree belongs to someone else, and that insurers may refuse coverage once an owner has reported a hazard. Staff said a removal permit can only be issued to the tree’s owner, so a neighbor can’t get one for someone else’s tree. “It really is a bad situation,” the commissioner said.
For owners of trees in the Chesapeake Bay Critical Area, the land within 1,000 feet of tidal water, removal still requires going through the county’s critical area staff, and state law requires replanting. In practice, Breedlove said, “99% of time” the county lets owners take a threatening tree down first, as long as they photograph it, and do the paperwork afterward. Outside the Critical Area, he said, the process is “pretty easy.”
Tall grass, but not everywhere
The rewrite keeps the county’s limit on grass and weeds 12 inches or taller within 100 feet of a home. But at the direction of the county attorney’s office, it would no longer apply to properties in the Critical Area.
The conflict, Breedlove said, is that the county prosecutes people for illegally clearing vegetation in the Critical Area. Ordering someone to cut the same vegetation “steps upon itself.”
The grass rule would also no longer cover:
- Land assessed as agricultural
- Natural wooded areas
- Public land kept as natural area
- Open space set aside by covenant or on a recorded subdivision plat
- Areas where growth is needed to hold soil and prevent erosion
Breedlove said the county gets frequent complaints from homeowners whose yards back up to subdivision open space that is meant to stay wild. The county does not enforce homeowners association covenants, he said, and will look to the recorded plat when it says “no cut, no clear.”
More time to fix a violation
Chapter 92 was last updated in 2014. The rewrite would line its enforcement up with Article 33 of the county’s new zoning ordinance and extend it to zoning districts the old chapter doesn’t cover. Among the changes:
- 60 days instead of 30 to correct a violation, with extensions for owners making progress.
- An inspection report on site replaces the old notice of violation. It must say what the problem is, what to do and by when.
- A new “abandoned vehicle” standard. Depending on zoning, an owner can keep one or two inoperable vehicles, but no abandoned ones, such as a car left in the woods for years.
- A $500 citation if the problem isn’t fixed, then a referral to the county attorney for court.
Enforcement remains complaint-driven. “Our staff is swamped,” Breedlove said. “We don’t have time to go look for anything.”
Asked how residents could appeal a ruling that something is trash, since “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure,” Breedlove said disputes would go to court. He said it has rarely come to that.
The tree and grass changes are the latest Critical Area adjustments in Calvert. In September the Planning Commission advanced a change to ease replanting requirements in the Critical Area, and a state law that took effect Oct. 1 makes Critical Area variances harder to get.
Planning and Zoning Director Jason Brinkley’s office will bring the amendments back for a public hearing. A date has not been set.
