Canongate resident Allison Beck lives near the walkway connecting the lower and upper halves of the road, where the maintenance of the grass verge had all but been abandoned by the Dunedin City Council, she said.
The grass had almost reached 1m high and had the potential to engulf children and small dogs deep in its depths.
Ms Beck has lived in Canongate for about 20 years and had attended multiple meetings with the council to do something about old fridges, dirty syringes and human faecal matter being dumped on the verge about five years ago.
She suggested if the area was well maintained then people would be less likely to mistreat it.
The council made a "gentleman’s agreement" with her that she would plant native plants on the verge and they would periodically weed whack the verge.
Ms Beck said for a while a man who looked to be in his 60s would attempt to mow the entirety of the verge.
But that soon stopped.
She had not seen someone weed-whack the area more than four times in the past year.
She felt Canongate was often a forgotten area of the city.
"We pay rates.
"We’re sure there are other areas of town that have public walkways that don’t quite look like this.
Ms Beck said Canongate was "quite a dense neighbourhood" with many apartments and houses that accommodated a lot of elderly people.
She was worried about it being a fire hazard.
"It wouldn’t take much for it to go up."
When asked about untamed grass verges around the city, a council spokesman said they were reducing their cosmetic vegetation maintenance programme in areas to offset increasing costs and focus spending on providing a safe transport network.
"We acknowledge that some residents are unhappy with the appearance of some grass verges and berms as a result of this change, but maintenance tasks that we have previously carried out for aesthetic or cosmetic reasons are not a priority."
The spokesman said the draft budgets to be considered as part of the nine-year plan process would include changes to vegetation maintenance for councillors and the community to consider.
"We continue to inspect vegetation to assess risk, and we have established different frequencies for prioritising the maintenance of vegetation areas."
He said the council was confident fire risk in areas with unmaintained grass verges and berms was minimal.
"In some cases, operating machinery [such as mowers] during times of extreme fire danger is more likely to present a hazard."
He asked anyone who witnessed illegal dumping around the city to contact the council.
