Sandra Donigain, of Lyons, feels trapped in her house and at the mercy of her husband’s schedule because she can’t park her car on the 30-year-old driveway next to her family home.

In 2015, the village blocked the drive with a curb and removed the apron as part of an ordinance that prohibited parking pads that don’t lead to a garage.

Donigain, who uses a wheelchair, and her husband sued the village in federal court March 13 alleging the village’s apron-removal policy violated the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Fair Housing Act. The ordinance denies the Donigains the right to use their property as they had done for years, the suit says, and prohibits them from selling the house to a disabled person.

The couple have been begging for an accommodation from the village since October, their lawyer said, and have gotten the runaround.

“It’s a shame. We tried to work with [the village] and tried to come up with an accommodation pursuant to federal law. They pretended they were going to accommodate my client, and then they started playing games,” said Jeffery Hagen, the Donigains’ lawyer.

“What really compounded it for us was the recent snow,” Sandra Donigain said. “I couldn’t get out and there was no place to put the car except in the alley a half a block away. I made it to the back door and had to catch my breath.”

The curb removal policy started on a few streets in summer of 2015. That’s when the Doniagains initially lost their access in the 4100 block of Anna Avenue.

But the new plan caused an uproar last fall when the village amped up a “street rehabilitation” program. Concrete workers from Arlington Heights-based J.A. Johnson Paving Company began pouring cement, ripping out aprons and blocking driveways with curbs in 10 neighborhood areas of the 2.2-square-mile town. “Driveway aprons that do not connect to a garage or driveway and a garage will be removed per village code,” read a letter signed by Mayor Christopher Getty. To keep their apron, owners must agree to build a garage within one year, the letter said.

Attorney Don Veverka fired off letters to the village on behalf of disabled neighbors who were losing access to their driveways.

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

Donigain, who grew up in the house, said her father, an amputee, used the driveway to park close to the back door. Now that her own mobility is curtailed, the blocked driveway means she needs help getting into and out of her car, which must be parked on the street — sometimes off limits for snow plowing — or in a garage with an alley entrance.

“They wouldn’t even give me a handicapped sign for the front of the house,” she said.

In October, Hagen got a letter from the village’s law firm, Odelson & Sterk saying “the village anticipates granting your request,” he said. But the problem dragged on. Odelson & Sterk did not return phone calls and emails from the Chronicle for comment.

Then the village demanded a plat of survey for the property and the building department asked the Donigains to submit a permit application. Even after they jumped through all the hoops created by the Building Department, the village stopped returning phone calls, Sandra said.

Furthermore, some village personnel were insensitive, Sandra said. An assistant to the village manager allegedly told her husband, “When [Sandra] dies you’re going to have to take the apron out if you sell the house.”

“We were just horrified. We just had enough,” Sandra said. When contacted by the Chronicle, the village employee neither denied nor confirmed that he made the comment.

The Donigains’ lawsuit claims that the village’s ordinance discriminates against federal disability and housing laws. The suit asks the court to intervene to stop the village from behavior that constitutes a “manifest injustice or palpable abuse.” The suit is filed as a class action, even though the Donigains are the only plaintiffs so far. Class members cannot sell their homes to the disabled, the suit alleges. “The village can swoop in and remove curb cut every time the home changes hands,” it says.

The complaint asks for damages and penalties and asks the court to declare the village’s curb cut ordinance discriminatory. The court should to enjoin the village from removing any more curb cuts and aprons and should order the village to replace all plaintiffs’ curb cuts and aprons, the complaint said.

Village Manager Thomas Sheahan and Mayor Getty did not return repeated calls, emails and texts for comment.

“The village has been stringing us along for six months while my client has been unable to park in her driveway, and she needs to be able to park in her driveway,” Hagen said. “This is a ridiculous ordinance that doesn’t consider the homeowners and the issues they have one iota.”

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— Class-action suit filed over Lyons driveway curb policy —