If you are growing potatoes or petunias in your back lane you likely won't have to worry about a Bylaw enforcement officer coming out and fining you — that is for at least the time being. The COVID-19 pandemic has the City taking a ‘lives over lawns' approach.
During Thursday morning's (April 9th) pandemic preparation news conference city manager Jim Puffalt said the City would not be out actively enforcing the new encroachment policy when it came to people growing gardens and flowers on City-owned back lanes.
At their December 10, 2019 meeting Council approved a new pro-active enforcement policy regarding encroaching on City-owned property.
Bylaw enforcement would actively seek out and potentially take action against those using City-owned lands without prior authority.
Previously, the City had utilized a complaints-based enforcement approach.
The approach proposed at that meeting was for the City to first issue letters and publicly educate residents whose properties encroached on City-owned properties but also at a later stage if there was no compliance to potentially utilize enforcement as the last action.
Asked whether the City would be enforcing the new policy when it came to residents growing vegetables and flowers on City-owned properties - back lanes - Puffalt said he could not see the City doing so.
“I don’t believe in this condition that we would be over drastic on what we are proposing. And I don’t believe we were planning to actively enforce. It was more so at this point of time establish some standards and communicate to the public,” Puffalt replied.
As a note, MJ Independent asked the question because two seniors had expressed concerns to us they wanted to continue to have their back lane and vacant city property gardens this year due to fears of COVID-19 related shortages.
Purchasing some products in local stores — such as potatoes — has been difficult as more people are cooking at home and others have hoarded them.
The food industry has said there are no long-term shortages expected in food availability.
“I don’t think we would do that in any case. Flowers are a positive and people getting outside especially during this time is really positive. Again, anything we do we try to temper it with judgement and reason. And that would be one to us not to not make sense at this point in time,” he said.
MJ Independent did not ask any further follow up questions — as the media was told before the news conference began to keep their questioning to COVID-19 City related issues only.
In documents previously obtained in January by MJ Independent, through a Freedom of Information (FOI) request regarding the change of policy when it came to encroaching on City-owned property, the issue was discussed at least once at a strategic planning session.
Documents on MJ Independent.com news-blog reveal before the new policy was adopted Puffalt had requested Administration review what other communities were doing regarding the encroachment issue.
In gathering data for their report Administration asked other communities what they were doing about encroachment issues.
One of the questions asked was what was being done about people growing gardens in back lanes or other publicly owned property.
It is unknown if Puffalt received a report containing what was being done about guerilla gardners in other communities or if Council had discussed taking action against back lane potatoes and petunias.
Bylaw enforcement has been declared an essential service by the City during the COVID-19 pandemic as they are required under various City bylaws.
