Enforcement of Landscape Ordinance Comes at a Bad Time

A Chicago landscaping ordinance is compelling Joe D. Perrotta to replace the chain-link fence around his business’s parking lot. JosŽ MorŽ/Chicago News Cooperative

For the owner of a Humboldt Park auto repair shop who lost 25 percent of his sales this year, paying $50,000 to fix up the parking lot of his business to comply with the city’s landscaping ordinance would be difficult.

Joe D. Perrotta, co-owner of King Transmission at 4152 West Grand Avenue, said he had never heard of the law until he received a letter in October informing him he was not in compliance with the city’s landscaping ordinance and other zoning requirements.

It took several trips downtown to show city officials his plans for compliance before his marching orders were clear: The city required him to install ornamental metal fencing around his business’s parking lot and make other changes to come into compliance with zoning regulations.

In the middle of laying off a third of his staff because of the economy, Mr. Perrotta said the news created an additional worry. “It’s a big chunk,” he said of the cost of the required improvements. “It’s another worker. It really is.”

Already hurt by the economy, small-business owners across the city say they are being forced to stretch too far to meet the city’s strict requirements for new fencing and planting trees or bushes. The city first singled out downtown buildings for such improvements, but now that the focus has turned to smaller businesses, letters like the one Mr. Perrotta received are hitting business owners just as the recession is knocking them, too.

Complaints from furious constituents have prompted some aldermen to call for a two-year break in enforcing the landscaping ordinance. On Wednesday, Alderman Eugene Schulter (47th Ward), a co-sponsor of the original ordinance, introduced a measure that would enact a moratorium.

The mandate for private investment in fencing follows a major and controversial move by the city. Mayor Richard M. Daley’s love of ornamental fencing, born during a trip to Europe in the mid-1990s, led City Hall and other Daley-controlled agencies to spend millions of taxpayer dollars to put up wrought-iron-style fences across Chicago. Then in 1999, the City Council approved a change in the city’s zoning and landscaping ordinances to require business owners to dig into their own pockets to surround their parking lots with the same ornamental fencing that the mayor had wrapped around schools, parks, public housing and city offices.

Mr. Daley’s demand for the ornamental iron fencing also created controversy when the city began erecting the fences. Many of the fencing contracts were with one company, G.F. Structures, and a Chicago Tribune investigation found that the company charged prices far higher than those listed in its winning bid. The exposure forced the city to rebid its business in 2000.

Lots downtown and near the city center were the first businesses required to comply with City Hall’s mandate, while owners of smaller parking lots in some outlying neighborhoods had until Jan. 1, 2008 to erect fences and make other landscaping improvements. When business owners seek to renew their licenses to operate in Chicago, every two years for most businesses, city officials call on them to do as the landscaping ordinance requires.

The city can issue fines of $500 to $1,000 daily for each day a violation exists, according to the Chicago Department of Law.

The legislation’s intent was to improve the city’s appearance, the city said when the ordinance was introduced. But many small-business owners say the recession makes it almost impossible for them to comply.

Mr. Perrotta said that he agreed with the goal of beautifying Chicago but that “we just need time to save the money.”

Patricia Scudiero, the mayor’s zoning commissioner, said this week that the outcry over enforcement reflected the stresses of the weak economy, not any increased enforcement by the city.

“There is not more enforcement,” Ms. Scudiero said. “There is more complaining.”

Ms. Scudiero said city officials had not yet decided whether they supported a moratorium, although she said her department had allowed some business owners to sign affidavits promising to do the required work within six months or a year.

Although many Chicagoans refer to the fences as “wrought iron,” most are made of hollow metal tubing rather than the more expensive, heavy, solid-iron fencing. Ms. Scudiero said the city would accept a cheaper alternative to wrought iron — but not chain-link fences.

Alderman Ariel Reboyras (30th Ward), who supports a moratorium on enforcement, said that he did not wish to repeal the ordinance, but that he did want to give business owners time to recover from the recession.

“These folks are just barely making it the way things are,” Mr. Reboyras said. “I know they’re hurting. Everyone is.”

The Zoning Department said it could not produce data showing the number of businesses that had been asked to comply with the ordinance or a total dollar amount of fines arising from noncompliance. Peter Strazzabosco, a spokesman for the department, said the computerized record-keeping system would not allow for the extraction of this data.

While the City Council debates a moratorium, business owners must prepare to make the changes. Should a moratorium occur, the two-year hiatus would pass quickly for many business people now facing the hefty expense.

Ande Kubis, owner of Frame Factory at 3400 North Pulaski Road in Irving Park, said the city asked her to spend $100,000 for fencing and landscaping as well as replacing the gravel lot at her picture-framing company with a paved lot, drains and curbs. Ms. Kubis said that money she had put aside for the parking lot had disappeared in the recession. Her staff of 45 employees has been reduced to 39.

“We need a couple of years,” Ms. Kubis said.

Joe Thomas, the owner of Three Brothers Auto, at 3722 West Belmont Avenue, said that he knew his parking lot needed to be fixed, but that he could not imagine how he could afford it.

Mr. Thomas, 60, is the shop’s only full-time employee, and he employs one student. Three Brothers Auto is his livelihood and retirement plan, and the cost of improvements would have to come from operations.

“Where am I going to generate this kind of revenue?” he asked.

Elsewhere, a couple who in the past made the improvements mandated by the city are now second-guessing at least part of the investment.

In 2000, when the couple, Hector and Jean Hernandez, had opened Tiger Auto Parts at 707 North Ashland Avenue in West Town, they could afford to comply with the ordinance. They erected a decorative fence and planted trees and bushes around their store.

Today, the fence remains, but the bushes are dead and gone.

An employee of the store, Frank Mendoza, said he thought the city had pushed too hard.

“The mayor is a bully,” Mr. Mendoza said. “I think he’s trying to push the working people out of the city.”

Mrs. Hernandez, who with her husband paid to put in the fence and the plants, said she supported the landscaping ordinance, although she believed the bushes and trees were too much of an expense.

“He wants a nice, uniform look to the city,” Mrs. Hernandez said of the mayor. “You don’t want to put up garbage. It looks nice.”

Dan Mihalopoulos contributed reporting.