In 2004, Janet and Jeff Crouch removed their traditional grass lawn and replaced it with species native to their Maryland home, like swamp milkweed, sunflowers, and scarlet bee balm. Their lawn did not require pesticides or fertilizers to flourish since their plants were well-suited to the conditions of their native environment. Over the years, as they continued to cultivate their garden, they relished the new visitors to their lawn: monarch butterflies, bumblebees, goldfinches, and “hummingbirds in darting, whirring droves.”
Their neighbors visited the lawn on walks too, and seemed to appreciate the abundance of flowers, shrubs, and birds. People stopped by and “comment[ed] on the pleasure the garden provide[d].” But one neighbor complained about the atypical yard to the Crouches’ Homeowners’ Association (HOA), asking them to have it turned back to turfgrass. The HOA then sent the Crouches a cease and desist letter. The letter stated that the native yet nontraditional plants “not only violated the bylaws, but were eyesores that hurt property values.” “Your yard is not the place for such a habitat,” the letter continued. The HOA said the Crouches had a mere ten days to rid their front yard of its wildflowers and turn it back into a grass lawn.
Rather than remove the plants along with the birds and insects that now called them home, the couple employed a lawyer to push back against their HOA. After a year and a half of failed negotiations to save the pollinator-friendly lawn, their lawyer filed a case against the HOA in their county’s court. Several years of legal fights and over $60,000 in legal fees later, plus the estimated $75,000 that their HOA spent employing a lawyer, the Crouches reached a settlement with their HOA allowing them to keep their biodiverse yard.
Their legal fight attracted the attention of Democratic Maryland State Delegate Terri L. Hill, who reached out to the Crouches and asked them whether they would allow their case to be used as “the basis of a new environmental law.” The Crouches agreed and even testified before the Maryland House in support of the bill. Soon after, the legislation was signed into law, and Maryland became the first state to limit HOA control over biodiverse, eco-friendly yards.
The Crouches are not the only Americans rightfully concerned about the ecological crisis of biodiversity loss, and they are not the only Americans who have come up against strict HOA rule enforcement when they have tried to do something about it. But not many Americans have $60,000 to battle their HOAs over lawn bylaws. Maryland’s new law provides a model for other states that want to protect biodiversity from “lawn culture.”
So far, a few other states have attempted to improve biodiversity and water conservation via residential lawns, but no legislation has gone quite far enough to loosen the manicured lawn’s hold on American yards. Many of these laws de-emphasize the importance of biodiversity and are not clear enough to protect homeowners from protracted legal battles with HOAs.
This Comment discusses how lawns are counterproductive to fighting environmental crises, how HOAs keep them in place, and how states have dealt with HOAs through legislation amidst environmental crises. It also evaluates the different state-level approaches and makes recommendations about what model state legislation should include.
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