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ARTICLE · 20 JULY 2022

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The Courts, The Constitution, And Naturalized Lawns

Lerners LLP
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This is a companion post to our blog on Making Sense of Municipal Regulation of Naturalized Lawns, which considers the legal framework that applies to efforts to naturalize or rewild properties.

CanadaGovernment, Public Sector
Jacob Damstra
Jacob Damstra
Brienna French
Brienna French
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This is a companion post to our blog on Making Sense of Municipal Regulation of Naturalized Lawns, which considers the legal framework that applies to efforts to naturalize or rewild properties.

While the patchwork of municipal by-laws across the province requires landowners to carefully consider the applicable property standards by-law if they want to naturalize their property, judicial decisions on rewilding have been more consistent.

MUNICIPALITIES SHOULD NOT REGULATE AESTHETICS

In a 1995 decision on the issue of restricting the naturalization of residential lawns by municipal by-law, in Caledon (Town) v. Mik1 the Ontario Court of Justice held that municipalities are "confined to the powers given to it under this subsection of the Municipal Act. In my view, those powers do not extend to the regulation of aesthetics or the application of controls on the visual appearance of properties."

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