ficus-spider-man,

Welcome to the Forum!

There are two things that come to mind regarding the situation you've described with the land behind your Dad's garage & the alley.

1.) The land in question is an easement. This means that the City has the "right of use" of the property to maintain utilities and/or the alley. So, in theory the City could remove your garden. Is it likely to happen? Hard to say...are there power lines back there?

2.) Or, it's also possible that the City has full title to that strip of land. Again, that would be to allow them room to maintain the alley and/or utilities.

The best way to find out the exact ownership is to call your Town Building or Zoning Department. Either department will be able to look up your address on their plat maps & immediately tell you what the city's interests are in the strip of land. There will be NO CHARGE to you for the information.

Frankly, even if the city does either have an easement or own the land...I'd keep the garden in place. Enjoy it until somebody of authority tells you it has to go...which may never even happen.

You don't have anything to worry about by making the phone call to the city. There's no garden police that will be coming out to rip out your nice garden. I think it's terrific that you've planted an otherwise unused piece of ground.

The other thing you can do is just not even worry about it. Just continue your garden knowing that it's possible there's an easement or even that the city owns the land. What's the worst that could happen? They take out the garden...

Tricia

I agree that odds are good the city would never use that land, even if they legally own it, so you may as well continue gardening there. My parents' garden is on a large easement area on their land - technically it's city land to be used to access a drainage pond behind their subdivision, but they've lived there over 25 years, and no one has ever enforced the easement.

But to be sure, try visiting St. Paul's municipal web site (http://www.ci.stpaul.mn.us). There's a lot of info in the "Housing and Property" section (link below). And if you can't find the info there, call the number on the top of that page and ask - someone at City Hall should be able to answer your question definitively.

Here is a link that might be useful: St. Paul's Housing and Property web page

You can usually garden in an easement - with the understanding that if the City ever needs to use that area, you will NOT be compensated for anything that is destroyed. If the easement is for underground utilities you usually are expressly forbidden from planting trees or anything with large roots.

I had some flowers in an easement, it's over a City water line. When they City had to make repairs, they obviously dug everything out. They installed a grass seed mat when they were done, but obviously no flowers. But legally they didn't even need to do that.

As far as I know there are no water lines or anything under the garage, powerlines do stretch on the oppisite side of the alley across from us. What phone number could I call, I need a phone num, could someone give me one, as I said I live in St paul MN.

I wouldn't worry about it, for all of the above reasons. No one's interfered with your gardening for three years and unless some construction goes on or something needs to be repaired, that might not happen for three more years. Or ten.

Your dad hasn't even back there in three years, perhaps no one else will either. Shame, really, gardens are meant to be enjoyed. I hope you have a couple of lawn chairs out there and invite people over to admire your hard work once in a while. (Just don't invite the easement-police :)

Hes been there other then yesterday , But I dont think he noticed really until yesterday I heard him talking with his girlfriend that I have a green thumb and about what I did to the garage so yes he does notice, it was only yestersday that he explained to me about easements and city ownership. I looked around other easements and its pritty noticeable and very well done I might aid. No other easement on our block looks as nice, I have a huge flowering butterflyweed, some coneflowers native switch and porcupine grass a HUGE brown eyed susan must be nearly five feet tall and some HUGE wild voilets that just grew there naturally. I will call the city and have them warn me ahead of time, I also got someone at our local nurshery who will take the plants if they need to be rescued.

As others have said, I think you're fine.

No one's bothered it all of these years, and unless they need the property for something, they should be looking at it as beautification.

We have a center divider on my street, filled with scrub pines. I recently started throwing my seeds out there, planted some wild daylilies, a few iris. The township guys actually trim around it, so far they haven't mowed it down.

The plants you put in are some of my favorites; I bet it looks great!

Here you go...

(651) 266-8989

Ask for the ZONING DEPARTMENT...

Love the plant selections you've made!

Tricia

Are you trying to get your garden destroyed?

Let sleeping dogs lye.

Why are you looking for problems??? If you call, the bureaucrat answering the phone just might tell you something you don't want to hear because it's his/her job to tell you. If you don't call, you will be enjoying your garden for years to come. To be honest, I think the city of St. Paul and city sections like Highland Park (lovely place, I lived there many years ago) and Highland Village have bigger issues to contend with. My best advice to you is to leave it alone. I sense you are truly concerned with doing the right thing - but making a phone call about this extremely minor issue is really not something you want to do.

I lived in a house in St. Paul, near Lexington and Grand, from 2002-2005. We were on the alley and I gardened on city owned easement land. I never had a problem and if we hadn't moved out of state, I'd still be gardening there.

I would not call anyone in the city about this. I'd just keep gardening. I have a friend who lives on Grand near Hamline and she has been easement gardening for 20+ years...with no noises from the city.

I agree - let sleeping dogs lie and enjoy your garden.

I agree. Enjoy your lovely garden and don't call their attention to it. I'm sure we all have easements of one kind or another on our property, but aside from the occasional cable or electric company repairman trimming trees that have grown into wires, we never see anyone.

Most pieces of property have an easement somewhere on them. For power lines, cable & electrical. Out in front of a lot of houses is a city easement in case the city widens the street, as breenthumb has pointed out.
Why would we call the city and ask if we can garden there?
Of course we would get a goofy answer if we called--and we all know it.

Okay thanks I'll do just that, common sense seems to point to me that if a giant elm stump was growing in the easement and nothings been done then its ovious that they dont seem to care.

Its a lovely garden and I'm not going to worry anymore.