It wouldn’t survive a court challenge, and yet it remains on the books and continues to be enforced every growing season.
Kingston, Ontario’s grass and weeds bylaw is a particularly heinous example of the vague, arbitrary, outdated and anti-ecological “propert standards” bylaws that municipalities across Canada persist in using in ways that discourage habitat gardens and naturalization.
“Unsightly weeds”? Based on subjective aesthetics that the judge in the Sandy Bell court case ruled overly broad and unenforceable. At the very least, name the “weeds” that, for health and safety reasons, people aren’t allowed to grow. “Heavy undergrowth”? By what standard and when does a succesfully growing groundcover become undergrowth that’s too heavy? “Overgrown and unsightly” shrubs?! That’s a particular howler.
Ironically, the two groundcovers that the bylaw approves of to prevent soil erosion are two non-native species that are wreaking havoc in natural areas, and that some places in the U.S. have prohibited gardeners from planting because of the demonstrable ecological damage they do: ivy and periwinkle.
It’s way past time to weed out this bad bylaw, Kingston!