Members of the Nashville Town Council are still reviewing the first draft of a yard and property maintenance ordinance to decide which parts of it they think should stay and which parts should go.

The first draft was introduced in June by Town Attorney James T. Roberts. It was based on an ordinance from Indianapolis. It was originally mentioned as an ordinance dealing with the height of “vegetation” such as yard grass, but it also contained more specific rules for maintenance of property.

The town’s current rules on yard and property maintenance were first passed in 1978 and amended in 1991. Roberts said they were vague and written in a language that isn’t very accessible to normal people.

Currently, the town prohibits “the collection of any offal, filth or noisome substance in any place to the damage or prejudice of others or the public”; putting buildings, fences or other items on public land that could injure someone; failing to maintain any structure to the point that it could endanger the public; failing to cut and remove “weeds and other rank vegetation” on your property; and spraying “herbicides, pesticides or other agents which might cause toxic or allergic reactions” among neighbors without prior notification.

Right now, the procedure is that whenever any of the above “nuisances” occur, the town can issue five consecutive notices to the landowner, and if the owner doesn’t remove the nuisance, the town can remove the nuisance and bill the landowner. If the landowner doesn’t pay that bill, it can be tacked onto the tax bill.

That has rarely been done, said Chief Administrator Phyllis Carr, who’s responsible for sending those letters. Usually, people just ignore the letters. She has safety concerns with sending someone out to mow someone’s yard if they don’t want it to be done.

Roberts said that making changes could “put a little more teeth in what we have, make it a little more workable.”

Town council members have questioned the public’s appetite for changing the ordinance, judging by conversations some of them have had with constituents and from the reaction the first draft received on social media.

Roberts told them to “go through it with red pencil and knock out the things you don’t want to regulate.” Council members had not done that yet by the time of their Aug. 15 meeting.