[Automation Gallery]

Thats nuts...................And to rat your neighbour.


Have you mowed your lawn yet this year? The amount of rain we've had over the past month has created prime grass growing conditions but take a trip into any Toronto neighbourhood and you'll find at least one - that lone home where the grass is growing like a weed and huge weeds are growing on the grass.

The unkempt front lawns aren't just worrying your neighbours - they've attracted the attention of City Hall, too. It turns out there's a bylaw that grass and weeds on private property in the city aren't supposed to be any higher than 20 centimetres.

If you've got one of those in your area, you can now call in and complain about it. The city is also sending out inspectors to look in places where offenders have been known to let the grass grow under their feet before in the summer months.

"This is the time when most properties that are not attended to begin to exceed the maximum height as outlined in the bylaw," explains Lance Cumberbatch of Municipal Licensing and Standards in a statement. "Enforcing the bylaw at this time encourages property owners to continue to do the proper maintenance through the growing season."

Offenders will be given a notice and three days to clean up their act - and their lawns. If an inspector comes back and finds nothing's been done, they'll cut the grass for you - and then charge you for the privilege.

Homeowners found guilty of the infraction have only one out. They have to successfully argue their lawns represent a "natural garden" and hope for an exemption. The rest will see their lawns - and their wallets - both cut.

It's similar to the winter law about clearing your ice off the sidewalk within 24 hours after a snowfall, although many residents have complained that bylaw is rarely enforced.

With a pesticide ban now in place, those in charge insist they mean business this time. "Cut your grass or we'll do it for you," warns Coun. Howard Moscoe, the longtime chair of the Committee. "If the City has to cut it for you, it will cost you significantly more than if you had hired a gardener."

The inspections began with the start of June on Monday and will continue through the month. Have a gripe about someone in your neighbourhood? Each area of the city has a special number to call. Check out the Licensing Enforcement list here to find yours.

http://www.citynews.ca/news/news_35037.aspx

 

[dt_toronto_geek]

Clearing sidewalks should be strictly enforced, it's a huge safety issue.
I get how letting grass grow and turn to weed can become an eyesore, but come on! There are many more urgent and pressing issues in this city than 20cm of grass for goodness sakes!
How about all those out of control English gardens in Cabbagetown, is that next eyesore waiting for a bylaw to be passed?

 

[azzo]

what a huge waste of our money...

 

[Hipster Duck]

This reminds me of why left and right-wing differentiations are meaningless. Maintaining perfectly manifcured lawns is very much a right wing cause - specifically one that would be championed by uptight, sunbelt Republicans in places like Arizona or Orange County, CA - but it is this kind of curtailment of personal liberties and government interference into people's lives that would have Edmund Burke rolling in his grave. It's as meddlesome as a left-wing nanny state law, only it's aimed at maintaining private property values.

 

[dt_toronto_geek]

This reminds me of why left and right-wing differentiations are meaningless. Maintaining perfectly manifcured lawns is very much a right wing cause - specifically one that would be championed by uptight, sunbelt Republicans in places like Arizona or Orange County, CA - but it is this kind of curtailment of personal liberties and government interference into people's lives that would have Edmund Burke rolling in his grave. It's as meddlesome as a left-wing nanny state law, only it's aimed at maintaining private property values.

In fact many neighbourhood associations in the US have very strict control over these types of issues ranging from manicured lawns to an outright banning of things like satellite dishes or basket ball hoops.

 

[syn]

This is ridiculous. People should be able to keep their lawns however they'd like. It's their property.

What about about people who don't have lawns, but just landscaping? Will the city fine them if their rocks are too hard, thus creating a safety issue?

 

[Yoshimura]

What about about people who don't have lawns, but just landscaping? Will the city fine them if their rocks are too hard, thus creating a safety issue?

Don't give them any ideas!

 

[Mustapha]

A city inspector walked down our back lane taking pictures of garages and fences that had been graffitied. The owners now have letters threatening fines if cleanup not done.

 

[fiendishlibrarian]

^ Good.

As for the lawns thing, these types of initiatives don't come out of nowhere. There are a *lot* of people who own homes who don't care for the "hipsterization" of the public realm, the unkempt lawn being akin to the tight jeans and Chuck Taylor-wearing dudes walking around with three-day beards and a mess of hair. They see both as indicative of laziness, complacency, lack of self-pride, and juvenile, self-centred selfishness, and with regards to property maintenance ultimately destructive to the public realm as a whole.

And as an anecdote, in my old neighbourhood in North York it always, I mean *always*, turned out that a house with an unkempt lawn was a grow-op or illegal rooming house. Without exception. So *that's* the spectre in the back of the mind of every homeowner calling their councillor and demanding that MLS go out there with rulers and mowers. Some here may think it's reactionary and "suburban", but there you are. This city is a whole lot more suburban than many think it is, or want it to be, and so I'm surprised that anyone would be surprised at this. If you are, you may not know the city as well as you think you do.

I think it's context as well. If I owned a house on, say, Patricia Avenue in Willowdale (my old area), and each house had perfectly cut lawns (believe me, it does), then hell yeah, I'd be on the case of the lazy deadbeat that brought the whole block down with his untended yard. Various streets in, say, the Annex, perhaps not so much. That horse left the barn long ago...

 

[Yoshimura]

As for the lawns thing, these types of initiatives don't come out of nowhere. There are a *lot* of people who own homes who don't care for the "hipsterization" of the public realm, the unkempt lawn being akin to the tight jeans and Chuck Taylor-wearing dudes walking around with three-day beards and a mess of hair. They see both as indicative of laziness, complacency, lack of self-pride, and juvenile, self-centred selfishness, and with regards to property maintenance ultimately destructive to the public realm as a whole.

Agreed with you on that fo sho.

And as an anecdote, in my old neighbourhood in North York it always, I mean *always*, turned out that a house with an unkempt lawn was a grow-op or illegal rooming house. Without exception.

All the more reason to decriminalize drugs.

I think it's context as well. If I owned a house on, say, Patricia Avenue in Willowdale (my old area), and each house had perfectly cut lawns (believe me, it does), then hell yeah, I'd be on the case of the lazy deadbeat that brought the whole block down with his untended yard. Various streets in, say, the Annex, perhaps not so much. That horse left the barn long ago...

Under any context, I'd never point a gun at people to make them mow their lawn.

 

[dt_toronto_geek]

How about all those out of control English gardens in Cabbagetown, is that next eyesore waiting for a bylaw to be passed?

Will the City waste time and start going after yards like this next?

Click on the thumbnail to enlarge, then click again on the image for full size.

 

[Hydrogen]

This reminds me of why left and right-wing differentiations are meaningless. Maintaining perfectly manifcured lawns is very much a right wing cause - specifically one that would be championed by uptight, sunbelt Republicans in places like Arizona or Orange County, CA - but it is this kind of curtailment of personal liberties and government interference into people's lives that would have Edmund Burke rolling in his grave. It's as meddlesome as a left-wing nanny state law, only it's aimed at maintaining private property values.

Reminds me of an article published a few years back that suggested right-wingers tended towards well-kept grass lawns, while left-wingers went for flowers and boulders.

Such analysis is silliness in the end. Failing to mow the lawn for weeks on end has much less to do with politics and much more to do with laziness.

 

[Prometheus The Supremo]

Failing to mow the lawn for weeks on end has much less to do with politics and much more to do with laziness.

what about crippledness?

 

[wyliepoon]

I think homes with big lawns are becoming something of the past. In an age where many people have no time or no interest in maintaining their lawns, many residential developers have eliminated big lawns from their subdivisions. Go to any so-called "new urbanist" subdivisions (such as Cornell) and one thing that you'll notice is the lack of big lawns. There is a small patch of grass in front, and a small yard in the back, but land that in older subdivisions would be take up by more grass is instead taken up by garages and back laneways.

I like this trend. Personally, I'm one of those lazy people who would rather do anything but mow the lawn. From an urban planning perspective, eliminating the lawn would allow low-density residential areas to be built with more density.

 

[Hydrogen]

what about crippledness?

Everyone who neglects their lawn is crippled?

Why not hire someone to mow it then?