If you live next to a stream, park, trail or open land, make sure you know where your property begins and City property begins before doing an outdoor project.

Landowners sometimes encroach onto neighboring public property. This is often inadvertent and typically happens in one of the following ways:

• Building or placing structures. Across Lenexa, there are firepits, trampolines, playsets and fences on City property.
• Landscaping. Planting trees and plants, mowing, trimming or digging on City property might seem like you’re making improvements. But these areas are often designed to have important conservation, stormwater management or habitat preservation purposes.
• Dumping. Grass clippings, branches and leaves should always go in your yard waste or compost container. It’s especially important to avoid illegal dumping around streams, where these materials can harm water quality and drainage.

The location of your property line isn’t always intuitive. AIMS, Johnson County’s online mapping system, is an easy way to view the approximate borders of your property. Go to Maps.JoCoGov.org, search for your address, and select “parcels” under the layers menu.

To find the exact locations of your property line, you should contact a private surveyor. They can mark the precise boundaries of your land so you can easily find the right location for a new project — or a good place to move something you’ve built on City property.