Champaign considers bamboo ban

CHAMPAIGN - Members of the city staff in Champaign are recommending that the City Council add bamboo to the list of plants local residents are barred from planting.

Bamboo species that send out runners to grow can crack concrete and colonize neighbors' yards, city code compliance manager David Oliver told The News-Gazette . The plant, he said, is a nuisance.

The city already bans 15 plants including marijuana, poison oak and kudzu.

But the bamboo problem, Oliver said, has only shown up at two homes.

One of those belongs to Dmitri Novikov. His bamboo has been the subject of numerous complaints, the city says. But he denies the plant damages neighbors' property.

Neighbor Martha Mills disagrees. She says bamboo weighed down by snow pulled electrical wires away from her home last winter.

The City Council will consider a bamboo ban on Tuesday.