West Chicago asks judge to enforce $20,000 fine over controversial greenhouse
West Chicago is asking a court to order mayoral candidate Dan Bovey and his wife to pay a $20,000 fine for building a greenhouse in their backyard.
The petition, filed Monday in DuPage County Circuit Court, is the latest chapter in the legal battle between the city and the Boveys over the greenhouse, which they started building in 2023.
The city also is asking the judge to order the Boveys to obtain a building permit and pay the city’s attorney costs and court fees.
Daniel Bovey declined to comment on the petition Tuesday, because it has not been served on him yet. He is going to court Wednesday, however, to ask Judge Bryan Chapman to stay the $20,000 judgment while the Boveys appeal a previous ruling against the couple.
Bovey, a church pastor who also owns a landscaping company, received a city permit in December 2020 to build a geodesic dome greenhouse. It is about 15 feet tall, with an internal balcony and 200-square-foot area for plants.
The city maintains that what the Boveys built is far more complex than what their submitted plans indicated.
After the couple’s initial permit lapsed in 2021, they paid a fine and received a new permit in 2022. However, the city says the structure failed a city inspection in July 2023 and that the permit then expired again.
After subsequent permit applications were denied, the city in September 2023 brought legal action against the couple, alleging nonconformance with an application for a building permit and failure to obtain a subsequent building permit upon expiration of a permit.
A city-paid administrative law judge ruled against the Boveys and levied the fine.
After the Boveys appealed the judgment to the circuit court, Chapman upheld the administrative judge’s ruling.
Now the Boveys are asking the state’s 3rd District Appellate Court to overturn Chapman’s decision, order the city to issue a building permit and require the city to permit a third-party inspection of the greenhouse.
The latest city petition raises an additional question: Who modified architectural drawings submitted by the Boveys?
According to the petition, the Boveys submitted revised drawings of the structure. But the architect who made the initial drawings said in a sworn statement that he did not do the revisions, which are in the form of notes on the drawings.
One of them is a note that states the plans are in compliance with the 2014 Illinois Plumbing Code, as required by the city. But the architect states that he could not include that statement.
Dan Bovey’s frustration with the city government led him to run for mayor. He faces incumbent Mayor Ruben Pineda and Joseph Sheehan.