Supporting Bylaw Reform: Fighting Back Against Unfounded Complaints

The growing season has barely even begun, and already I’m hearing from native plant gardeners who are receiving Notices of Violation from their municipalities because of their habitat gardens. The good news is that people are starting to fight back—both individually and in groups organizing to urge for the reform of outdated and anti-ecological “grass and weeds” bylaws in their communities.

For groups starting to organize on this issue, there are some great resources and advocacy materials available. The national campaign for bylaw reform is a good place to start.

The Ecological Design Lab at Toronto Metropolitan University has loads of useful materials on Bylaws for Biodiversity.

My blog, under the Tag Grass and Weeds Bylaws has links and information and stories of people fighting back.

This native plant habitat gardener has rallied community support to advocate for change.

And for anyone who has received an unfounded Notice of Violation, post your experience on social media if you are able to. Feel free to reach out to me via the contact button on my website if you’d like support.

And for anyone considering advocating for change to your municipality’s “grass and weeds” bylaw, here is a link to a very helpful document that lists “Key Features of Biodiversity-Supporting Bylaws.” Many municipalities don’t follow the practices outlined in this document, but change is only going to happen if we all start advocating for bylaw reform. This “Key Features” document provides guideposts for where municipalities can and should be with “grass and weeds” bylaws that support habitat gardens! Please consider using this checklist when advocating for bylaw reform in your municipality.

A Court Challenge to Mississauga's Grass and Weeds Bylaw

A significant victory today in the legal effort to reform grass and weeds bylaws and to bring sanity to enforcement of these bylaws.

Wolf Ruck of Mississauga was in the Ontario Court of Appeal today, arguing that Mississauga’s enforcement actions against his naturalized garden—including two complete mowings of his yard—were unjustified, arbitrary, and unfair under Administrative law.

Wolf Ruck’s naturalized front yard, in Mississauga, in June 2023. Wolf maintains his naturalization with mown paths and borders.

Because Wolf’s case raised Constitutional issues, the three appeal court judges basically sent Wolf’s case back to the Ontario Superior Court for a new hearing that includes Charter arguments. It was great to hear the three judges suggest that, for Wolf’s Charter rights to a natural garden to be infringed, the onus was on the City of Mississauga to prove that Wolf’s naturalization presented such danger that his Charter right to express his environmental beliefs through a naturalized garden could be infringed. Good luck with that. Wolf’s case will put municipalities across the country on notice.

Wolf’s naturalized yard in late October, 2024. The City of Mississauga mowed it down shortly after this photo was taken.

Specific municipalities' property standards bylaws: critiques and recommendations

For many years and for different reasons, I’ve been writing critiques of (and recommending changes to) various municipalities’ property standards/grass and weeds bylaws. Sometimes it’s to support a community group that’s interested in advocating for bylaw change. Sometimes it’s for staff and/or Councillors in various municipalities who have expressed an interest. And sometimes it’s just to gather my thoughts into a format that might be useful, somewhere, somehow, sometime.

As part of the national campaign for bylaw reform I’m involved in (with the Canadian Society of Landscape Architects, Canadian Wildlife Federation, David Suzuki Foundation, and Ecological Design Lab), I’ve decided to post these critiques of specific bylaws in specific municipalities (Ottawa, Burlington, Hamilton, Kingston, Mississauga).

Keep in mind that these critiques were written for various audiences. I hope they provide useful guidance for municipalities and community groups interested in working to reform property standards/grass and weeds bylaws in support of biodiversity and naturalized yards and gardens in their cities and towns.

Ottawa's property standards bylaws are in need of reform!

After hearing about a number of really outrageous recent bylaw enforcement actions in Ottawa (someone in Kanata being told to remove all the dead leaves from their yard; someone else having her garden completely razed to the ground; a native plant gardener being told that her goldenrod is a prohibited plant…), I decided to take a close look at the existing property standards bylaws in Ottawa (including the newly revised (2023) “boulevard” bylaw) and write a critique of what needs changing in them.

I was shocked to discover that the Ottawa bylaws are some of the worst I’ve seen: vague, arbitrary, mandating conformity to the neighbourhood, not defining what species are prohibited, not itemizing height requirements, using aesthetic terms that are open to vastly different subjective interpretations…

Here’s a link to the full text of my critique, in case anyone (or a group) is curious and open to working to advocate for change in Ottawa:

If you’re interested in a summary rather than reading the full critique, here it is:

There are 3 different bylaws in Ottawa related to yards/gardens: Property Maintenance Bylaw No 2005-208, Property Standards Bylaw No 2014-416, and Use and Care of Roads Bylaw No 2003-498.

The main problems with these 3 bylaws are:

• The official and legal text of the bylaws are not on the City’s website.

• It’s unclear as to whether the “Naturalized Area” information on the City’s website is part of the Property Maintenance bylaw or not, creating uncertainty for residents.

• The lack of definition of “weeds” or “grass,” which means residents don’t know what plants are prohibited, and prohibitions will be subjectively determined by enforcement officers.

• The use (and regulation) of the subjective term “heavy undergrowth.”

• The use (and regulation) of aesthetic language such as “unsightly.”

• The requirement that yards/gardens must conform to whatever landscapes their neighbours have (“consistent with the surrounding environment”).

• The prohibition against leaving the leaves, leaving plant stalks, and including twigs, branches and nurse logs as habitat features, because all are “garden refuse” which must be “cleaned” up.

Here’s hoping that an Ottawa group will take on the task of advocating for the reform of these terrible bylaws and their enforcement!