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December 21, 2024

Gov Pritzker Signs “The Garden Act” – Preempts Home Rule –

By John Kraft & Kirk Allen

On July 30, 2021

Springfield, IL. (ECWd) –

Today, Governor Pritzker signed HB 633, “The Garden Act” to protect the right to grow vegetables in a garden on residential property.

Apparently some municipalities have attempted to regulate gardens to the point where they cannot exist.

This Act stops that practice.

HB 633 preempts Home Rule units of government from enacting Ordinances inconsistent with this Act.

THE GARDEN ACT:

Section 5. Purpose. The Act’s purpose is to encourage and
protect the sustainable cultivation of fresh produce at all
levels of production, including on residential property for
personal consumption or non-commercial sharing.
Section 10. Vegetable garden defined. As used in this Act,
the term “vegetable garden” means any plot of ground or
elevated soil bed on residential property where vegetables,
herbs, fruits, flowers, pollinator plants, leafy greens, or
other edible plants are cultivated.

Section 15. Right to cultivate vegetable gardens.
Notwithstanding any other law, any person may cultivate
vegetable gardens on their own property, or on the private
property of another with the permission of the owner, in any
county, municipality, or other political subdivision of this
state.

Section 20. Home rule. A home rule unit may not regulate
gardens in a manner inconsistent with this Act. This Section
is a limitation under subsection (i) of Section 6 of Article
VII of the Illinois Constitution on the concurrent exercise by
home rule units of powers and functions exercised by the
State.

Section 25. State and local regulation still permitted.

Section 20 of this Act notwithstanding, this Act does not
preclude the adoption of a regulation or local ordinance of
general nature that does not specifically regulate vegetable
gardens, including, but not limited to, regulations and
ordinances relating to height, setback, water use, fertilizer
use, or control of invasive or unlawful species, provided that
any such regulation or ordinance does not have the effect of
precluding vegetable gardens.

 

 

 

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10 Comments
  • PK
    Posted at 10:14h, 04 August

    The Illinois General Assembly took two, if not three full seasons (seed, harvest, grow) to get this most basic matter resolved. The GA’s time taking is actually worse than a legislator initializing a local matter in order to extrapolate the issue and their politic, upon every other local government body. Like a good neighbor, but be a good neighbor first.

  • Just Say 'No' To Busybody Karens
    Posted at 18:54h, 02 August

    This law is in response to some busybody neighbors in Elmhurst who did not like a vegetable garden a couple of years ago, grown by children. This law should be a waste of time but sometimes busybodies take what is going on in someone else’s backyard way too far.

  • NMWTLS
    Posted at 09:17h, 01 August

    Oh thank you, thank you to the legislators and governor for “protecting” our property rights!! Laws were made to prevent an individual from using their property as they see fit. Now a law is made to override those laws. While that may be a “good” thing, the entire premise is moronic.

    Property rights are the most important thing – they are everything! That is especially important in this day and age when the government seems to have forgotten that your body is your most valuable piece of property.

  • Nanny
    Posted at 23:04h, 31 July

    I wouldn’t plant in yards that have been chemically treated. Raised beds with organic dirt

  • Kathiann
    Posted at 15:52h, 31 July

    What’s the catch I wonder? It’s not like our governor to be benevolent in the midst of a “pandemic”.

  • Aaron
    Posted at 07:59h, 31 July

    Here comes the licensing of gardens. . .sure as Illinois is a communist utopia, time to pay

  • Dennis Finegan
    Posted at 04:00h, 31 July

    Gardens we can plant. Don’t see anything wrong with that. Illinois Master Gardeners in DuPage plant and harvest hundreds of pounds of food yearly that is donated to food banks. Can’t solve the pension problem, but I can plant food on my land. Small win.

  • Dave
    Posted at 20:18h, 30 July

    Its dehumanizing to make it unlawful to have a vege garden

    • Cal Scigalski
      Posted at 22:30h, 30 July

      Right you are Dave. Some municipalities dictate no vegetables in the front garden. Imbecilic.

  • Concerned Illinoisan
    Posted at 20:03h, 30 July

    We may go bankrupt due to profligate spending and absurd pension assumptions, but by golly we can have our gardens!

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