A growing fight against lawn enforcement

Proponents of naturalized gardens fear a shift away from a seminal ruling that protected green areas

- OMAR MOSLEH

Mississauga resident Wolf Ruck, who started naturalizing his garden to "give nature a chance" and encourage biodiversity and crosspollination, recently challenged the city over its enforcement of a bylaw preventing him from keeping a naturalized lawn. He lost but is appealing the ruling.

When does gardening qualify as a human right?

That depends what side of the lawn you’re on.

For proponents of naturalized gardens, which are allowed to grow semi-wild for environmental reasons, one of the clearest rulings dates back to the early ’90s, when a Toronto woman named Sandy Bell challenged a $50 bylaw infraction ticket on the basis of freedom of expression.

Bell said she naturalized her lawn to help fight climate change, and her lawyers argued the city forcing her to mow it violated her Charter right to express her environmental beliefs through her gardening. The judge agreed, and her victory has been called precedent-setting and is oft-cited in case law.

“My primary concern or raison d’être was to demonstrate to my young son that we could coexist with nature ... so that was just a really clear case of being able to express my own environmental beliefs,” Bell said in a recent phone interview.

But a recent ruling out of Ontario’s Superior Court shows the issue is not so clear-cut, after it rejected an application from a Mississauga man who argued that a bylaw in its current form infringes upon his Charter rights.

Wolf Ruck, an artist, filmmaker and canoeing Olympian in his late 70s, said he started naturalizing his garden to “give nature a chance” and encourage biodiversity and cross-pollination.

In his challenge, he said he wasn’t disputing the bylaw itself, but the way it was enforced. He contends it was applied unfairly and arbitrarily based on neighbour complaints, and that the city hasn’t identified how it’s detrimental to the neighbourhood.