NORTH MANKATO — What is and isn’t a “natural” yard and what North Mankato residents should be allowed to do in their front and back yards has been an ongoing debate in recent years.
On Tuesday night the council formally approved an updated ordinance that gives residents more leeway in planting and maintaining yards that have more than sod and some vegetable gardens and flowerbeds. The ordinance had previously been agreed on and was approved Tuesday as part of a package of ordinance changes.
In 2021, when former city Administrator John Harrenstein and former Mayor Mark Dehen led the city, North Mankato passed a “managed natural yard” ordinance that allows people to have up to 30% of the non-pervious portion of their yard converted to a managed native planting area, along with setbacks from their property lines.
The ordinance came after a year of debates and public hearings where many residents opposed the ordinance as being too restrictive, while some worried it could allow people to let their yards grow wild.
Some opponents of the ordinance said setbacks and other requirements would force them to remove some of the pollinator landscapes they had nurtured.
The updated ordinance approved Tuesday was prompted by a new state law requiring all cities to allow residents to have native landscapes with fewer restrictions.
Some council members had in meetings last year indicated they wanted to remove restrictions that limited natural plantings to just 30%.
The new ordinance allows the “planned, intentional and maintained planting of native and nonnative wildflowers, forbes, ferns, shrubs and trees.” It includes rain gardens, meadow vegetation and ornamental plants.
The managed natural landscapes can’t include turf-grass lawns left unattended and people can’t allow noxious weeds to grow.
Meadow vegetation is defined as grasses and flowering broad-leaf plants that are native to, or adapted to, Minnesota.
Rain gardens are intended to not only have native plants but to reduce the amount of storm water and accompanying pollutants from entering streams, rivers and lakes.
Other than as part of the managed natural landscape, any weeds or grass cannot grow higher than 8 inches.
The managed landscape can’t interfere with a motorist’s view of the street. And managed landscapes are not allowed in boulevards or other public right of ways.
Those who fail to maintain their managed landscapes will get a notice from the city and if it’s not addressed in a certain time, the city will do the work, with the cost applied to the property’s tax bill.
At a meeting last year, several council members said that while the city could be more restrictive they leaned toward removing the restriction that natural plantings can only cover 30% of the yard.
Councilman Matt Peterson noted that in lower North Mankato, which features smaller yards, the city’s 30% ordinance didn’t leave people much room to grow native plants. And he said there seems to be too many details in the former ordinance, which opens it up to legal challenges.