Its their property because of utilities and drainage. If you plant stuff there the roots could damage whats underground or block water from draining. Also it a safety concern for those exiting their driveways or passing a driveway...it needs to have no plantings for visibility. And the reason if something is planted there it is considered city or county property is if they need to dig the area up for maintainence they need to be able to dig out an area a timely manner not have to wait for a homeowner to move a plant.

In our city, doorhangers are put out to announce coming right-of-way work, advising homeowners to remove anything they want to save, including lawn sprinkling equipment.

Here fences are usually built on the property line. On the other side of the fence is the road. Where vehicles move along is the carriageway. But all the land from the fence/property line to the fence/property line on the other side is the road, including the sidewalk, the 'swale' (as you call it), and carriageway is legally the road. If you look at a subdivision plan you should see it. Of course, if you do anything on it there is the question who is responsible for public liability if anything happens there.

Its very rare to have a fence in the front of the house in florida.

It's not unusual to not have front fences in some areas, but there always is a property line.

tropicbreezent, the "swale" is a strip of grass between the sidewalk and the street, usually where the utilities are buried. It isn't a sidewalk.

Also, in FL, your yard doesn't necessarily start at the sidewalk. There can be a small strip of right-of-way on your side of the sidewalk that you are obligated to maintain, but the city has the right to install utilities on or under, or use to widen the sidewalk. You don't have to maintain the swale, but most people do, since if they don't, it can sit for months without even being mowed. They also usually have utility ROWs on the side and back of houses, and there are clearances where you can't plant things, or put in permanent structures.

I put a paver area in for grilling on the side of my house far away from the ROW line. (not concreted in, just laid) and the Verizon guy got very mad when he had to pull the pavers up to dig up a bad cable. He actually cursed at me, and called his supervisor and cursed at him. I talked to the supervisor and he agreed that the cable was not supposed to be run diagonally across my yard like that, but they probably did it to save time and cable. He had them come in and dig a trench to lay the cable properly, and they also had to re-lay my pavers.

My father was a civil highway engineer, and he taught me all about right-of-ways. Utility ROWs are supposed to run in straight lines along the edges of properties (as you will see on your property plat), but utilities determine the gauge of the cable they run by the length they have to run (longer distances, larger cable), so if they can get away with it, they'll run smaller cable across your yard instead of along the right of ways like they should to save money. I dug up a Comcast TV cable in the middle of my back yard once. They admitted it shouldn't have been there, but since I didn't have Comcast service, I just left it. The people who moved into my house had to have it completely re-laid when they wanted cable put in, because it had been cut up.

I am only familiar with the use of the word swale since I moved to Florida and lived in a neighborhood where there are flood control canals throughout. These swales are periodically mowed by the city when they are dry enough to do so. I like walking along them to search for wildflowers and have found several in the years I've lived here.

Wikipedia entry: A swale is a low tract of land, especially one that is moist or marshy. The term can refer to a natural landscape feature or a human-created one. Artificial swales are often infiltration basins designed to manage water runoff, filter polluntants, and increase rainwater infiltration.

I grew up in a neighborhood that had a patch of grass beyond the house's front lawn, between the sidewalk and the curb, and, indeed, the homeowner was responsible for mowing it, but no one ever planted anything in it. We didn't have a name for it.

Thanks dg, I'd guessed your meaning of swale. I'd always understood it to be low lying ground between dunes (sand) or embankments. And as Pattybee dug up on Wikipedia, artificial ones are built to control water runoff, which is what I mainly use them for on my property. For your use of the word swale we use the term "nature strip". Most people maintain them as lawns although some are made into extensions of the garden.

Your ROWs are what's called "easements" here and are for utilities. They're noted on your property title deeds. So they're still part of your property but you can't do anything which would interfere with the utility or its maintenance. Here ROWs allow you physical access across property which isn't yours.

We have a "Dial-before-you-dig" hotline you can ring to find out where cables, etc., are before excavating. They send you plans showing the underground infrastructure (hopefully) before you do any damage. But cables where they're not supposed to be, well that's a whole new ballgame.

Yes, easements is the word I was trying to remember. The easements ran along the sides between houses, but the ones by the street were ROWs because they can bring vehicles and machinery onto them without asking permission, whereas they have to ask permission to bring a vehicle or machinery onto your easement. So the city or utility can come dig up your entire ROW to widen a road, for instance, and there is nothing you can do, but they can't dig up your easement to, for example, put in a drive-thru without your permission., even if you called a utility company to do repairs. They have to give you a date and time, and tell you what they are going to do, whereas if they have to dig up the front swale or sidewalk, they just need to give you prior notice. No permission needed. I guess that's to make maintenance easier for them.

So in my neighborhood, they could have decided the street needed widening, and taken out the sidewalk and however many inches of my front yard was on their ROW without asking me at all, but of course, in that situation, they usually hold a public hearing if it's going to affect a lot of people's properties.