Riverside is planning to ban gas-powered leaf blowers in town within the next couple of years.
At their Nov. 21 village board meeting, trustees discussed whether the village should ban the landscaping tools, which create loud noise that residents have complained about to officials. While trustees Elizabeth Kos and Megan Claucherty were absent, the other four trustees agreed to pursue an educational campaign next year with the intention to phase gas-powered leaf blowers out of use through 2026 and 2027, although the board did not take any formal action.
At the meeting, Assistant Village Manager Ashley Monroe asked the board whether Riverside ought to ban the equipment and, if so, if it should then require landscapers to become registered in town so staff can track equipment usage and enforce the ban. Regardless of whether the village pursues some form of registration, there may be challenges with enforcing the ban, at least at first, she said.
Monroe also asked if the board would like to modify the existing landscaping hours in town, but trustees agreed to leave them unchanged. Landscaping is allowed in Riverside from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. on weekdays, 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Saturdays and 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Sundays. Commercial landscaping is banned on Sundays, meaning those hours apply only to residents.
Trustee Aberdeen Marsh-Ozga said she would support banning gas-powered leaf blowers in Riverside, but she recognized that doing so immediately could negatively impact business owners.
“I think, in terms of both the incredibly high decibels of noise that these leaf blowers generate [and] the particulates that they push out, which are a different matter altogether from the emissions, the CO2 emissions, that there’s a lot of public health reasons to be concerned about gas-powered leaf blowers,” she said. “They are on the way out. They are recognized as kind of a health hazard, frankly, and it would behoove us, I think, to be on the front end of this movement” to ban them.
“For spring and fall cleanups and for emergency storm situations, I would say that gas-powered equipment should be allowed,” she added. “Otherwise, we, in being fair, should work towards a ban. We shouldn’t ban it outright now, because the businesses aren’t ready. They’re not that agile. They replace equipment as they can, but I think encouraging a phase-out over time to work toward an eventual ban would be the best approach.”
Marsh-Ozga suggested developing an educational campaign for 2025 and potentially drafting an ordinance that would ban the use of gas-powered leaf blowers by 2026 or 2027.
Trustee Jill Mateo said she agreed with phasing the leaf blowers out over time.
“I agree with, at least for now, allowing leaf cleanup to stay gas until such time as the technology improves, and then they can make that switch,” she said.
She asked how long other municipalities that have banned gas-powered leaf blowers, like Glencoe, Oak Park and Evanston, took to phase them out before banning them altogether. Oak Park banned gas-powered leaf blowers in March 2023, but the ban will not go into effect until June 1, 2025.
Trustee Cristin Evans said she also supported phasing a ban in over two or three years. She asked about an existing list of contractors the village could use for outreach efforts.
Monroe said Riverside had a list of contractors who have already been licensed and that she has created another list of potential contractors to notify. She said village staff could ask residents who they contract with or simply search for contracting businesses in the area as a way to grow the list.
“Even if we’re not registering them, if we’re connecting with them — we’re at an adjacent house next door doing an inspection — we can certainly note who it is and try to add that,” she said. “It would come together over time. It’s not the same as requiring them to register by a certain point, but I feel comfortable starting with something like that.”
Evans said she wouldn’t want the village to inconvenience residents searching for a landscaper by placing the burden on residents to inform contractors of a registration requirement.
“I think a more organic list that we grow on our own would be the least intrusive on residents,” she said. “People hire different contractors for all sorts of reasons. I definitely wouldn’t want to just have a set of licensed contractors, and residents can only choose from them.”
Trustee Alex Gallegos said he supported the education campaign, but that battery-powered leaf blowers, the alternative to those running on gas, may not yet be sufficient for contractors’ use.
“Even though batteries are getting better and better, we’re just not there yet, and horsepower also lacks,” he said. “Commercial landscapers that I have talked to have said they would be charging up all day long and wouldn’t be able to get the workload done that they would need.”
He said phasing the gas-powered equipment out by 2026 or 2027 may be “too aggressive at this point” but that he still favored “taking baby steps” toward that goal while educating residents and contractors.
After further discussion among the board on requiring contractors to register within Riverside, including the yet unbudgeted cost of staff time to enforce the ban on gas-powered leaf blowers, Marsh-Ozga suggested returning to the topic around budget season in fall of 2025 so the village board can then decide whether to register landscaping contractors.
