Landscaping & Grounds Maintenance in CAM Reconciliation
Maintenance of exterior grounds including lawn care, plant maintenance, irrigation, tree trimming, seasonal planting, and hardscape maintenance. Applies to office parks, retail centers, and any property with landscaped common areas.
Benchmarks per SF
Source: BOMA EER / IREM 2024
Typical GL Codes
Recoverable Components
- Regular lawn and plant maintenance
- Irrigation system maintenance and water
- Seasonal flower planting and mulching
- Tree trimming and maintenance
- Hardscape cleaning and repair
Non-Recoverable Components
- Initial landscaping installation (capital)
- Major irrigation system replacement (capital)
- Landscape redesign or enhancement (capital)
- Landscaping for undeveloped parcels
Allocation Method
Pro-rata by rentable square footage across all building tenants. In multi-building campuses, landscaping may be allocated based on building frontage or lot area rather than interior SF. Semi-variable expense: may be subject to gross-up if contract scales with occupied buildings in a campus.
Common Lease Language
“Operating Expenses shall include all costs of maintaining and repairing the exterior grounds, landscaping, irrigation systems, walkways, and hardscape areas of the Property.”
Common Billing Errors
- Including landscape capital improvements (new plantings, redesign) as operating expenses
- Allocating campus landscaping only to occupied buildings rather than all buildings
- Failing to separate irrigation water costs from building utility costs
- Charging premium landscaping (water features, rooftop gardens) without lease authority
Year-over-Year Trends
Landscaping costs have risen moderately (3-5% annually) with labor inflation. Water costs have increased significantly in drought-prone regions (California, Southwest), driving adoption of xeriscaping and smart irrigation. ESG requirements are pushing landlords toward native plantings and reduced chemical use.
Audit Flags for Landscaping & Grounds Maintenance
Review this category before tenant statements go out when the GL activity, lease language, or benchmark range moves out of pattern.
- Compare current-year spend to prior-year actuals and budget by account.
- Separate contract base charges from one-time repairs, credits, and late invoices.
- Check whether the lease treats this category as controllable, non-controllable, or excluded.
- Verify that direct tenant charges are not also included in the shared CAM pool.
- Retain invoices for material variances in the audit support package.
Additional Context
Landscaping is generally a fixed-cost contract that does not vary with occupancy, making gross-up inappropriate in most cases. However, in campus environments where landscaping contracts scale with the number of occupied buildings, it may have a variable component.
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