Homeowner takes city to court after refusing to mow his lawn: 'What is actually the threat here?'

A Canadian homeowner took his city government to court after he refused to mow his lawn, and the resulting ruling struck down local lawn-ordinance requirements. 

According to the Canadian Broadcasting Company, Mississauga resident Wolf Ruck challenged the city over bylaws on lawn maintenance and mowing that prevented residents from growing plants above a certain height. 

The law prohibited grass exceeding 20 centimeters in height and banned other specific plants. 

Ruck stopped mowing parts of his lawn in 2021, leading to multiple complaints to the city. That triggered mandated mowing and, in 2023, a city intervention, prompting Ruck's lawsuit. 

Ruck's lawn was not an unkempt mess; it consisted of a mowed walking path, surrounded by islands of free-growing grass and weeds, allowing those patches to grow naturally. 

"I felt that this is something that I could do personally, in order to address the problem of biodiversity decline and global warming," he said.

While the city claimed its ordinances were enacted for safety and public health, the court found that Mississauga did not sufficiently prove that Ruck's lawn, or the ordinances in general, actually benefited public health in a meaningful way.

"Basically what the court has said to Mississauga is, if you are going to limit how people can use their lawns, you need to do it with evidence," said John Mather, a lawyer with the non-profit Canadian Constitution Foundation, which intervened in Ruck's case. 

"You have to go through the exercise, as a government, to figure out what is actually the threat here, what is actually the risk? What is the thing we need to stop?" Mather added.

Ruck's victory was a win for proponents of natural lawns and for rewilding yards, practices that encourage the proliferation of native species. 

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Native plants can reduce water use and help combat non-native species, whose presence can make areas more susceptible to fire. Rewilding creates unique outdoor spaces, with gorgeous plants that make a lawn or garden's natural beauty stand out. 

While Ruck did not win a monetary victory, Mather noted that this case will set a precedent, requiring municipalities to provide evidence for laws regulating lawns. 

"I think any municipality that has any weed control bylaw will … need to look at Justice [M.T.] Doi's decision," he said. 

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