The dispute began simply enough, with a neighbor’s complaints about the plants behind a southwest suburban couple’s backyard. Where the neighbor saw weeds, the two U.S. EPA employees who lived in the home saw an environmentally friendly prairie garden.
Since then, a two-year legal battle has spread like unruly crab grass across state and federal courts with no end in sight. Will County authorities have spent more than $50,000 on an outside lawyer to respond to civil rights claims while prosecuting the Frankfort-area family over the plants.
The weeds case literally became a federal issue, albeit briefly, after the couple filed a lawsuit in federal court alleging, among other things, that the county was infringing on their right to participate in the drafting of a new weeds ordinance. Will County brought in the Chicago law firm Lowis & Gellen to defend it against those claims.
The cost so far to taxpayers? More than $52,000.
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“I can think of a lot of better uses for $50,000,” said Bret Rappaport, a Deerfield attorney who works with a native plantings group called Wild Ones but isn’t involved in the case. “Maybe some potholes, maybe some poor people, maybe some health care, I don’t know. Maybe they’re just tripping over buckets of money in Will County.”
A spokesman for the state’s attorney’s office said the county has repeatedly tried to settle the case with the Frankfort Square couple. Charles Pelkie said the weeds case, which has more filings than some murder cases, had become so costly because the couple filed the federal lawsuit and then a state counterclaim that the county had to defend itself against.
In March, the county offered to dismiss its ordinance violation case if the couple would drop their claims and allow inspectors to take another look at their property. The couple sought, among other things, a written apology, annual payments to care for the plot and for the county to highlight the wetland as a model of suburban native landscaping.
No accord was reached. A Will County judge has ruled against the couple on all but one of their claims, awarding the county about $8,800 in legal fees, which could eventually help offset some costs to taxpayers. The case returns to court this month.
For residents along a cul-du-sac in the Indian Trails subdivision, the case is an illustration of what happens when committed conservationists try to put their beliefs into practice on a block of tidy green lawns.
One neighbor says her family now uses more weed-killing chemicals to keep their lawn looking good, and another has stopped speaking with the offending couple, though one neighbor said she’s reluctant to oppose plants that are native to the area.
Sheri Bianchin, a licensed attorney, and her husband, Brad Bradley, an environmental engineer, have lived with their two children in the home since about 1997, court records show.
The couple, who are involved with Wild Ones, purchased wild iris, lavender hyssop and other seeds not long after moving in and went to work, records show.
Their goal was to turn a clay-soil marshland behind their above-ground swimming pool into a native prairie area that would drain better and require little maintenance. Eight years later, their prairie garden and “native wetland,” which extends into an 85- by 70-foot drainage area, was featured in a native plantings walking tour and certified as a “conservation at home” yard by the Conservation Foundation.
But in 2009, a Will County inspector visited the property and decided it was in violation of the county’s weeds ordinance. For about six months, the two sides reached a truce, but by 2010 it had fallen apart, and the county took the couple to court.
The debate — laid out in emails filled with arcana about setbacks, controlled burns, the 2006 International Property Code and purple loosestrife — wearied both sides. The couple even hired a botanist to do a site inspection.
“I need to decompress and burn a stick of incense after reading this,” the county’s chief code enforcement officer wrote in a 2010 email to a colleague after a message from Bianchin, according to a court filing. “These ongoing email rebuttals are like Chinese water torture.”
In an interview, Bradley said he and his wife still don’t understand why the county took them to court. He said they have spent thousands of dollars on the legal battle.
“Will County somehow took offense and seemed to think we were trying to pull a fast one,” said Bradley, who said he believes he and his wife were unfairly singled out.
So-called native landscaping — most commonly involving a few native plants but sometimes an entire yard — has become more prevalent since the 1990s, said officials with the Wisconsin-based Wild Ones, which has more than 3,100 dues-paying members.
Rappaport, the attorney who works with the group, said Chicago once prosecuted homeowners for their native plantings but now has a City Hall roof covered with a garden of native plants. “It’s really kind of surprising that Will County is as backward as they are,” he said. “Legitimate native landscapers should be applauded.”
Will County says the problem isn’t with native landscaping, but with the Frankfort Square couple’s refusal to follow the rules. Mary Tatroe, head of the state’s attorney’s civil division, said the couple failed to live up to two separate agreements and was taken to court over the “noxious weeds” on their property.
In December, the county passed a new ordinance that allows native plantings under certain conditions along with fines and penalties of up to $525 per day for violations. Tatroe said the Frankfort Square couple still would be in violation of the new code, both because of the weeds and the lack of a 5-foot buffer from their neighbor’s property.
Next-door neighbor Tracy Bojan said she complained to the county after seeing mice running around her patio and didn’t feel safe letting her children play in the backyard at night with the animals running in and out of her neighbors’ garden. She said the plants grow more than 6 feet tall.
Bojan said the plantings wouldn’t be a problem if her neighbors were living in a rural area or a larger lot instead of a cul-du-sac of tightly spaced homes.
“I don’t see how you can do this here,” Bojan said.
“I mean if you saw our property and the property next door to him — it’s grass, grass and a hot mess in the middle.”
Bojan said some neighbors no longer talk to the conservation-minded couple because of the dispute. The couple wrote in one court filing that someone had driven over their “Wild Ones” sign.
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But not everyone is bothered by the couple’s choice of landscaping.
“They definitely have good intentions,” said one neighbor who declined to be named. “I’m kind of neutral on it. How can you argue with having something that’s natural to our state?”