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Suburban summer debate: When is lawn mowing OK?

Suburbs struggle with the answer

It's a quintessential suburban debate: When is it OK to mow the lawn without annoying neighbors?

Is 7 a.m. on a Saturday acceptable? What about 10 p.m.? Never on a Sunday?

Murphy's Law decrees that one person's backyard barbecue will be his neighbor's cue to crank up the mower. But does this mean the municipality should step in, forming or tightening regulations about when loud lawn maintenance can go on?

In Naperville, some city council members say they're hearing not only the loud lawn mowing equipment of the contractors their neighbors hire, but also a chorus of complaints about early start times and inconvenient evening hours.

Two proposals have been pitched to change the city's regulation on commercial mowing in residential neighborhoods, currently allowed between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. seven days a week. Schaumburg and St. Charles are among communities that regulate mowing similarly, although they allow it a few evening hours longer - from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. seven days a week.

Naperville could push back the weekend start time by one hour to 8 a.m. and move forward the weekend end time by one hour to 6 p.m., as suggested by council member Rebecca Boyd-Obarski. Or the city could match contractors' mowing hours to those applied to construction work in residential neighborhoods, making the allowable hours 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday and never on Sunday.

"This is not a new issue in Naperville," said Bob Fischer, president of the Naperville Area Homeowners Confederation, which is surveying its members about their thoughts on the topic.

Indeed, the city has been down this road before.

In 2012, Mayor Steve Chirico, then a city council member, unsuccessfully tried to make construction hours the same as commercial lawn maintenance hours. That's what Libertyville does, restricting lawn mowing to its construction window of 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Saturday and noon to 6 p.m. Sunday.

The issue four years ago in Naperville was landlords and banks who owned foreclosed properties and would hire crews to cut the grass of vacant houses at times that bothered neighbors.

The issue now remains noise and annoyance, but not necessarily because of foreclosures. Chirico said he still thinks construction hours should be the same as commercial lawn mowing hours. Residents wanting to cut their own grass would not be affected by the change.

"I would love to see something like this happen," Chirico said, calling the construction time frame a "reasonable" window for contractors to get their Naperville lawn mowing done. "It's very annoying when you're trying to enjoy your backyard on an afternoon."

Owners of Naperville landscaping companies say they understand the annoyance, and they take steps to avoid it, purchasing quieter models of their mowing, trimming and blowing equipment and starting after 8 a.m. when possible.

But they also say the weather can dictate when crews can cut the grass.

"Sometimes it's rainy and you're behind," said Barry Conlin, owner of C.B. Conlin Landscaping, Inc. in Naperville, which has about 50 residential lawn mowing customers in town.

Craig Vogelpohl's eight-person crew with Timber Wolf Landscaping, Inc. in Naperville mows about 400 lawns in the city, sometimes doing 12 in a row on a street and "making noise for four hours; then the rest of the week, it's as quiet as a library."

If the hours are reduced, he said, the noise might be louder because more contractors would have to be hired to get the same amount of lawns mowed in a shorter span. A contractor's equipment is louder than the average homeowner's because it's larger and designed to get more done quickly.

"We've been working up to that 7 p.m. limit just to finish on a lot of nights," Vogelpohl said. "We're using all of our time up to that limit right now to get stuff done."

But if the hours have to change for commercial crews like theirs, Conlin and Vogelpohl say a 7:30 a.m. weekend start could be a compromise.

"Anything later than 8 would not be fair to the people trying to make a living mowing lawns," Conlin said.

Fischer, with the homeowners confederation, says Boyd-Obarski's idea of shortening the weekend time frame by one hour on each end has the most potential, especially because he's hearing a lot of support for an 8 a.m. start.

The city's planning and zoning commission will review proposed mowing regulation changes July 20.

"Nothing irritates me more than when my neighbor's landscaping contractor shows up at 7 a.m. on the dot," Fischer said. "Neighbors are smart enough not to go out and cut their grass at 7 or 8 in the morning, because they've got to live here. But contractors? Not so much."

Naperville chamber balks at changes to landscaping laws

  Workers from C.B. Conlin Landscaping, Inc. mow and trim the lawn at a house in Naperville, where commercial lawn mowing work could be under new regulations that could shorten the allowable hours, especially on weekends. Bev Horne/bhorne@dailyherald.com

Lawnmowing hoursA sampling of when suburbs allow residential lawn mowing.

Arlington Heights: 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday; 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday

Elgin: 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Friday; 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday; 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Sunday

Libertyville: 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. seven days, following the village's construction hours

Lombard: No restrictions, but citations can be given under noise ordinance for disturbing the peace

Naperville: 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. seven days; city is considering changes that could affect contractors only

Palatine: 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. weekdays; 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. weekends. Hours just changed this week.

Schaumburg: 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. seven days

St. Charles: 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. seven days

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