Town wants legal tools to deal with high lawns
By Joanne Degnan, Managing Editor
UPPER FREEHOLD — The town has devised a plan to deal with abandoned properties where you almost can’t see the McMansion for the weeds.
An ordinance introduced June 7 would authorize the town to hire a private contractor to mow tall grass and weeds of “unreasonable height” at any abandoned home and then place a lien against the property to eventually recoup the cost. The ordinance defines unreasonable height as 10 inches or more.
The proposed ordinance is intended to address the problems that arise when banks holding the mortgage on abandoned residential properties do not hire people to regularly cut the grass.
Township Attorney Granville Magee said the ordinance is narrowly written so that it does not apply to farms, meadows or residential properties that are still occupied by either a property owner or tenant. No one will be able to call out the township’s code enforcement officer on a vacationing neighbor whose lawn is getting a little high, Mr. Magee said.
”We’re not looking to create a tool for neighborhood disputes waged with weapons like this ordinance,” Mr. Magee said.
The Township Committee voted 4-0 to introduce the ordinance. (Township Committeeman Robert Frascella was absent). The public hearing and adoption vote on the ordinance is set for 6 p.m. June 21.
At the root of the too-tall-grass controversy is a property in Golf Ridge Estates, where an abandoned 6,218-square-foot home (currently assessed at $815,600) sits surrounded by 2 acres of weeds and grass that is at least 24 inches high in places.
According to county records, Countrywide Mortgage (which was later acquired by Bank of America) filed a notice of foreclosure against the property owner, Yvette Williams, on Feb. 6, 2009. Township Committeeman Stephen Alexander said neighbors report the property has been vacant for three years.
Mayor LoriSue Mount and Mr. Alexander said that in recent weeks they have had to contact several banks about a few different abandoned homes in town to get these properties back on a regular lawn maintenance schedule. All banks have complied except Bank of America, they said.
”Disappointingly, there is a property in Golf Edge Estates that is somehow under the handling of Bank of America, and if you want to talk about corporate America and the lack of customer service, call Bank of America,” Mrs. Mount said.
The mayor said she spoke to 12 different individuals at Bank of America and the last one hung up on her after she remarked it was “sad and pathetic” that the bank representative kept repeating that he could neither confirm nor deny her complaints about the condition of the property.
Mr. Alexander said he too was frustrated by his conversations with the bank.
”I talked to Bank of America and I actually told them today that I’m in government, and I know government is slow, but Bank of America takes it to a whole new level,” Mr. Alexander said at the committee meeting.
Mrs. Mount said the proposed ordinance would “give us some sort of control in addressing these types of properties.”
Mr. Magee said the ordinance would provide the property owner between 72 hours and 10 days to correct the problem. The township code enforcement officer would determine the deadline for compliance on a case-by-case basis depending on the situation, he said.
If the “property owner, tenant or person in possession of any abandoned dwelling or lands” fails to comply, then the township can hire a private contractor to cut the grass and place a lien against the property so that the taxpayers are reimbursed once the property is sold, according to the ordinance.
Mrs. Mount said the township must hire private contractors to cut the lawns of abandoned properties because the town barely has sufficient manpower to keep all the grass on public lands maintained.
There was no answer last week at the Golf Edge Estates home at the center of the controversy. A landscape designer’s business card was stuck in the front doorjamb, and an undated “vacancy posting notice” sticker was inside the window stating that the mortgage service provider “intends to protect this property from deterioration.”
The Messenger-Press placed a call to the Bank of America phone number listed on the “vacancy posting notice” and was transferred to a media relations representative, who said she couldn’t respond before the paper’s deadline because it would take a few days to research the property’s status.

