Sandy and Mike Donigain had their driveway blocked off with a curb last summer during street repairs in the 4100 block of Anna Street. (Photo by Jon Langham/for Chronicle Media)

Street improvements in the Village of Lyons are giving some residents a nasty shock when they learn a new village ordinance means some side driveways are no longer allowed.

Contractors for the village have been blocking off driveways by pouring a cement curb and removing concrete driveway aprons unless residents sign a contract to build a new garage, they say.

A group of residents, some of whom are disabled or had disabled family members, met at a local restaurant Sept. 19 to brainstorm ideas to challenge the ordinance.

Many of them brought a letter signed by Mayor Christopher Getty telling them they would no longer have access to their driveways.

“Driveway aprons that do not connect to a garage or driveway and a garage will be removed per village code,” the letter titled 2016 Street Rehabilitation said. The village passed an ordinance in April 2015 forbidding driveways or parking pads that do not lead to garages on residential property. Neighborhood streets in 10 areas of the 2.2-square-mile working-class town are being resurfaced this fall by Arlington Heights-based concrete company J.A. Johnson Paving Company, the letter said.

About 20 residents met at PJ Klem’s restaurant to complain that their side parking driveways — many of which were in place when they bought their property — are necessary for them to easily get from the car to the house.

Sandy and Mike Donigain had their driveway blocked off with a curb last summer during street repairs in the 4100 block of Anna Street. Sandy has lived in the family home for more than 30 years.

“My father was an amputee and he used to use the side drive and park near the back of our home to exit the car,” Sandy Donigain said. Sandy herself now uses a wheelchair after a health crisis last spring. Although the couple has a garage, it faces the alley, and so Donigain said she prefers to park in front of her home and wishes she could use the side drive, which is now an empty cement plot next to their home.

In winter, during snow plowing, Donigain said the garage is snowed in and she can’t park in front of her house. Donigain said her mobility is affected because she has to rely on her husband’s availability to help park the car. The Donigains retained a lawyer to request that the village restore their apron.

͞Be sure no apron͟ spray-painted instructions in front of a Lyons home with a curbed off driveway. The village passed an ordinance banning driveways that don’t lead to a garage. (Courtesy Lyons Living Facebook Page)

“It’s a real pain in the butt,” Sandy Donigain said.

Sheri Cudnik showed the group a copy of a contract she signed with the village promising to construct a new garage within a year on her property in the 8300 block of 44th Place.

“We had no choice. We use our driveway because my husband isn’t allowed to park his work vehicles in the street,” she said.

Joanne Schaeffer said she received a copy of the letter a few days previously and realized her driveway was about to be curbed off. Schaeffer, a school board member of Lyons Elementary D103 and a vocal critic of Getty, said her disabled husband uses the driveway to park close to the house.

“I don’t understand why we weren’t given more notice,” Schaeffer said. “I heard about [the resurfacing] then I got a note on my front door that it’s happening on my street.” Nicor Gas company had just made street repairs the previous year, she said. “They just put brand new curbs in and now they’re tearing them out again?”

Schaeffer said her property had a garage, but it faced the alley. A hearing for a variance in front of the Zoning Board of Appeals would cost $500, she estimated. “I don’t have that.”

Schaeffer later spoke at a Village Board meeting asking for an exception for her husband’s disability, but the board did not grant her request.

Strategies to get the ordinance changed were weighed at the meeting. One way to delay the construction was if it could be proved the village had improperly noticed the changes, said Bill Ruting, a former Lyons trustee and former member of the Lyons Zoning Board.

Ruting said his research and memory indicated the village was required to publish notice for every address affected in a newspaper of record and send every property owner a letter before a zoning change ordinance was passed.

Residents agreed the new ordinance was never announced to them in advance.  Another strategy was to point to the village’s conflicting ordinance requiring two on-site spots for every residence, Ruting said.

Attorney Don Veverka sent the village letters on behalf of retired Lyons police officer Joseph Jeras and his disabled wife and two other neighbors. All were told their driveways would be curbed off.

“I urge you to put a halt to your program of removing parking pads until you can further explore the legality of your ordinance and the effect on your citizens,” Veverka wrote. State law says a government body may not deprive a property owner of existing use and state law supersedes local ordinances, wrote Veverka, who formerly served as a LaGrange Park village trustee. Lyons is a non-Home Rule municipality.

“You can’t interfere with longstanding rights,” Veverka said. In this case, he added, “The benefit to the public is outweighed by the harm to the public.”

“The village has to accommodate people with disabilities,” said the Donigain’s lawyer Jeffrey Hagan. “This ordinance violates the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Fair Housing Act. It’s just bad policy.”

“I can’t think of any advantages [of this ordinance] to the village,” Hagan added. “Once they take the curb cut away, do they expect you to dig up the driveway and put in grass? If you’re expected to build a garage in a year, what is the advantage of forcing someone into that cost?”

Neither Getty nor Village Administrator Thomas Sheahan returned messages requesting comments.

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— Disabled residents curbed off by Lyons street repairs   —