You can imagine my surprise when the official said only my garden and five others in the city would be enforced even though it is a “city wide” ordinance and be the only ones in the city to pay the fee – essentially a “garden tax”. Singling out individuals in our community and enforcing ordinance policies on only a few within that community is unjustly discriminatory.
I built the garden behind my home for my community on shared city
easement property because I love this city and want to support it. The garden stretches across three people’s properties, however, I am solely responsible for managing and maintaining all of this space. Primarily the garden is a mixed native plant and drought tolerant perennial bed plantings and I cannot see the garden from my back door – it is meant to be enjoyed by others and to help beautify our community and improve the economic value of our homes. My neighborhood has been incredibly supportive of this garden and 90% of the plants in the garden are donated from others supporting my initiative to help beautify our neighborhood.
My concern about this situation goes beyond my own property and garden because with the ordinance in place, new gardeners are discouraged because of the fees. If a family is going hungry in our community and needed to feed their family and wanted to place a well-tended vegetable garden on easement property, how could they do so if they cannot afford the fees? What if a homeowner simply wanted to plant a garden in the space to beautify his neighborhood much like I have? Would a homeowner be likely to do so if there were fees involved? I am concerned that this ordinance deters gardens and beautifying our community instead of supporting these issues.
Warrenville, while insulated from the larger world, still has people here who are going hungry and businesses are shutting down and are leaving our fair city. Gardens can feed the hungry, they can beautify the community so more businesses want to stay, and they can even help manage and reroute water drainage issues saving taxpayer’s money. We need gardens now more than ever!
WOULD YOU PLEASE HELP ME?
Will you please go to my blog at thecasualgardener.blogspot.com , and leave a comment in support of saying NO to this garden tax in our community? It is a peaceful way to show the city that you do not want to pay more for your landscaping and gardens which might be on easement property.
I went to a City Council meeting and requested that both the issue of individual discrimination and the issue of the “garden tax” be readdressed by the city. I posted what I said to the City Council below so you can see more detail on how the city approached me and why I feel the way I do about it.
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WHAT I SAID AT THE CITY COUNCIL MEETING ON 2/21/12:
My name is Shawna Coronado. I live at [gave address], in Warrenville, IL.
Friday, February 10, I received a call from Sonya Shearer, the City of Warrenville’s Code Enforcement Officer, about the 200’ long garden I’ve built along my and 2 other residents’ easement property she told me I would sign the City of Warrenville Landscape License and Covenant Agreement and pay a fee. Those fees will be $35 to the City of Warrenville and approximately $40 additional to the county.
Also, Ms. Shearer went to an organization I am a part of; Warrenville In Bloom. Without my presence there, Sonya asked them to help her police “the problem” which is my garden. If someone is complaining about my garden to the city I should receive a written notification, certainly not conversations with non-profit organizations I am a member of.
I want to work with the city in a positive way and I am pleased to see that we are all committed to working together for the benefit of our neighborhoods and the greater City. With this in mind, my concern is that Sonya told me that the agreement was actually set in place for all the citizens of Warrenville who had landscaping of any kind on their shared easement property, from mailbox gardens to bushes and trees, but that the city is not approaching other easement gardeners. They are only approaching me and five other gardeners.
Now I’m not sure why I’m being singled out and I don’t know who these other five homeowners are, but we share something that the rest of Warrenville does not: we are being segregated by the city into a category that is different and unique then the rest of the community. That is discrimination. To be prepared to police this ordinance you must hire enough staff to do so fairly - you must do a survey of every property in Warrenville, determine which homeowners have trees, bushes, or gardens in an easement area, then force them into fines and signatures equally or change the ordinance policy entirely.
I have researched the current City Easement ordinances here in Warrenville and discovered that they have changed from when I originally installed the garden. I was not notified of nor invited to the City Council meetings during the time when these property ordinances were being decided upon even though the property I have been taking care of would be financially impacted. Neither were the other homeowners in Warrenville who have had existing landscaping on easement property.
My thought is this Landscape Covenant is a money making ordinance and a tactic built to put more control into the city’s hands over our properties. In essence, the City of Warrenville has built a “Garden Tax” to be placed on our community at a time when some of its citizens are going hungry and have no money – a time when we all need gardens more than ever to beautify, strengthen, and grow our city.
I have spent hundreds of hours in this garden, spending time and money to beautify our community. Dozens of my friends and neighbors have donated plants for this garden. I have worked tirelessly in the last five years to educate people on how to feed the hungry, how to conserve water, how to help their communities, and how a garden is not simply a garden, but is a tool with which to improve economic viability within our community.
Utilizing social media I have been able to get positive attention for the City of Warrenville on a global scale. I have built a career on encouraging people to get involved in their communities and have followers in dozens of countries who think of this place as an idyllic small town in America because of my efforts. Our family has continued to be dedicated to volunteering and supporting Warrenville with pride for the more than 13 years we have lived here. After all those years of hard work, financial investment, and time spent you can imagine that getting this telephone call from Sonya singling me out in a negative way from the rest of our community feels unjustly discriminatory and pretty much broke my heart.
This city does not need discrimination, it does not need another ordinance which is an attempt to collect fees and control people, it does not need a “Garden Tax”. What this city needs is some common sense. I feel as if have spent the last five years of my life trying to encourage growth in our community and in one ordinance the city has been able to squash my progress in a single swoop.
I am here this evening to bring all of this to your attention and to request that this situation AND the Landscape License and Covenant Agreement be addressed by the City Council. NO ONE in Warrenville, Illinois should be discriminated against or discouraged from helping beautify our community by having to pay a “Garden Tax” when hundreds of people in our community are going hungry, when our homes are being economically devalued, when businesses are closing up shop and we are losing the power to entice them to stay, and when we could change much of this with a few concerned citizens and the power of a garden.
I want the ordinance fee to be removed for every resident of the city. I want our community to be able to plant on easement property without ordinance fees, within the constraints of basic rules set forth by the city such as no tree or invasive plantings. And I want any policing of the easement properties to be done so fairly and without discrimination.
I know that both Warrenville and I are committed to working together to benefit our neighborhoods and city. Having said that, City Council, I hope you will please consider investigating this situation and readdressing this ordinance. Will you please put this on the agenda for the next City Council Meeting?
