The strip between the sidewalk and the street: when artificial turf there isn't your decision

That strip usually isn't yours to design around on your own

The grass between the sidewalk and the curb goes by different names depending on where you live: right-of-way, tree lawn, parkway strip, verge, swale. Whatever your city calls it, the land itself is typically public — held for street, sidewalk, utility and drainage purposes — even though the adjacent homeowner is the one who mows it and, in some cities, is legally on the hook for maintaining it.

That split between who owns the strip and who takes care of it is exactly why it can't be folded into a turf layout the way a private front or back yard can. Two cities we checked directly, one in Florida and one in Colorado, treat it as a separate landscape category from the rest of your lot, with its own rule about artificial turf. Neither rule is a courtesy suggestion — it's an ordinance or an adopted regulation. Read your own city's version before you plan the strip in.

Atlantic Beach, Florida: no artificial turf in the right-of-way, period

The City of Atlantic Beach's Artificial Turf Installation Guidelines open with a location restriction that leaves no room to negotiate: "Artificial turf shall not be installed within any City right-of-way." That's the first standard listed, ahead of anything about base material, permeability or drainage.

The same document sets separate tree protection standards that apply wherever turf goes in near a tree, right-of-way or not: turf installed under a tree's drip line has to sit at least 18 to 24 inches from the trunk, the sub-base beneath it can't exceed 3 inches, and the installation can't cause water to pool at the base of the tree. If your address has a street tree in that strip, the tree — not the turf — is what the city is protecting first.

Atlantic Beach is one city in one county. It tells you what a Florida municipality can require, not what every Florida municipality does require — see the next section for why the state's recent turf law doesn't override a rule like this one.

Why Florida's new turf law doesn't reach the right-of-way

Northeast Florida homeowners sometimes ask whether Fla. Stat. 125.572 — the state law that stops counties from banning compliant synthetic turf — settles the right-of-way question statewide. It doesn't, and the statute's own wording is why.

Section 125.572 directs the Department of Environmental Protection to set installation standards, then bars a local government from prohibiting a property owner from installing compliant synthetic turf on single-family residential properties 1 acre or less in size. A right-of-way strip is neither: it isn't the property owner's land, and it isn't the residential property the statute is written to protect. Nothing in the statute mentions rights-of-way at all. Atlantic Beach's outright right-of-way ban sits entirely outside what the state law touches.

We haven't confirmed how Jacksonville, St. Johns County or other northeast Florida cities and counties treat their own rights-of-way — Atlantic Beach is the one we could read in full. Our Florida turf and HOA law guide and Florida infill rules guide cover the separate questions those pages are about; neither addresses the right-of-way.

Westminster, Colorado: turf only in yard areas not adjacent to a street

The City of Westminster's Landscape Regulations state the limit plainly: "The use of artificial turf is generally prohibited, except for use in single-family detached or duplex lot yard areas not adjacent to a street, or public or private park or open space." Read that against the strip in front of your house — it sits directly adjacent to the street, which is the one condition the exception excludes.

The regulations then set a separate, affirmative planting standard for the right-of-way area itself. On local streets with detached walks, the right-of-way landscape area "shall be planted with one shade tree every 80 linear feet and turf, groundcover, or shrubs" — meaning living planting, not the artificial kind the earlier section restricts. Local streets with attached walks carry the turf, groundcover or shrubs requirement without the added shade-tree standard. And upkeep doesn't default to the city: "The maintenance of all landscape improvements in the right-of-way is the responsibility of the adjacent lot owner unless specified otherwise on the Official Development Plan."

One caution on this source: the document is titled Landscape Regulations 2004. We read the current text posted on the city's own site, but a regulation that old is worth confirming is still in force before you rely on it for a specific address — call Westminster's planning department directly. For the separate question of what your HOA can and can't restrict on your own lot, see our Colorado HOA turf rules guide.

Grand Strand: we haven't found a published rule yet — ask before you design around it

For Horry County, Myrtle Beach and the other Grand Strand cities and towns, including Shallotte and Carolina Shores across the North Carolina line, we have not located a public ordinance addressing artificial turf in the right-of-way specifically. That's a gap in what we've read, not a statement that no such rule exists.

Don't read the silence as permission. Right-of-way strips carry utility lines, drainage swales and, in many coastal towns, protected canopy trees — reasons a city could regulate the strip even without a turf-specific ordinance on the books. Before you plan a Grand Strand right-of-way strip into a layout, call your town's public works or planning department and ask directly.

What usually stays, and whose job it is to keep it

Two different cities, two different rules on artificial turf — and both still protect the trees. Atlantic Beach requires an 18–24 inch clearance from any tree's base and caps sub-base depth at 3 inches under a drip line. Westminster requires a shade tree every 80 linear feet of right-of-way on local streets with detached walks. If your address has a street tree in that strip, plan your turf layout — wherever it's allowed to go — around its root zone and drip line, not through it.

It's also common for a city to own the strip but push maintenance onto the adjacent lot owner anyway. Westminster states that directly: upkeep of right-of-way landscaping "is the responsibility of the adjacent lot owner unless specified otherwise on the Official Development Plan." That's one city's rule, not one every city shares, but ask both questions wherever you live: who owns the strip, and who is responsible for maintaining whatever is planted there. The city that owns it can still make you the one who mows, waters or replaces it.

How to ask your city before you design around this strip

Call your city or county's public works, right-of-way, or planning and zoning department — not a general information line. Use the term your city uses for the strip, since "right-of-way" alone doesn't always surface the right department; "tree lawn," "parkway," "verge" and "swale" are common alternates.

Ask four things directly: whether artificial turf is allowed in that strip at all; whether any tree, drainage or permeability requirement applies to it; who is responsible for maintaining whatever is planted there; and whether a permit or plan review is required before you install anything. Get the answer in writing or note who you spoke with and when, the way you would for any other city requirement.

Where we fit once you know the answer

We install across the Denver metro, the Grand Strand and northeast Florida with 13 years' experience, and we design every layout to the rule for the actual address — not a generic one. On a free visit, we measure the property, check the ground, and talk through what your city allows in that strip along with everything else on the lot. If the right-of-way is off-limits or restricted, we draw the layout around it; if it's allowed, we build it to the city's planting and drainage terms.

You approve the layout before anything is installed. Call 303-349-2368 to schedule a free visit for a project in the Denver metro, the Grand Strand or northeast Florida, including the residential turf work covered on our Denver metro, Grand Strand and northeast Florida pages.