Family held hostage by council's tree preservation rules

My family and I live in the suburb of Lane Cove (NSW Australia), in a single-story three bedroom brick veneer house.

Above our roof are two large gum trees, maybe 25 meters tall, and with 40% to 50% of the canopies extending directly above our roof. Large branches reach almost all the way accross our home.


Now on first sight, there's nothing wrong with this. The beautiful trees overhanging the house look peaceful and picturistic. The Lane Cove area is full of these types of views, bringing a leafy characteristic to the suburb, which is attractive and pleasant when you're driving through, right?

However, having to actually live with these trees above our heads 24/7, is very far from pleasant or peaceful:
  • These large branches are very close to our roof. So much so that in strong winds branches hit the tiles causing noise and damage.
  • When it rains heavily, the branches get wet, and heavy. Which means they get even lower and closer to our roof tiles, literally dragging across them in the rain.
  • Various dead branches and 'twigs' fall down constantly, even moderate winds. These twigs sometimes have 5cm or more diameter. This may sound small, but these are quite strong and have some heft. They leave visible dents in our car parked in the driveway just underneath. And I'd hate to think what would happen if one of these falls on my 2 year old daughter's head as she's playing around the house.
  • We've had larger, heavier branches fall on the roof in the past. On one occasion breaking a bunch of tiles and flooding the garage and laundry. This required extensive repairs handled through an insurance claim. 
    • In strong winds and rains, it's impossible to sleep at night. My ears are tuned to the sound of the wind, waiting for that big bang of a large branch falling on the roof. My eyes are open and glued to the ceiling, looking out for leaks.
    • Speaking of which, we've recently started noticing some water marks on our ceiling inside. The problem is the leaves and gunk again. They clog the roof and the gaps between the tiles, interfering with the water flow. In strong rains, some water starts to sip between the tiles and get inside the roof cavity, corroding the insulation and roof above our heads. 
  • There's also an ongoing daily torrent of leaves falling down all over the place. Lovely, right? Only that these leaves clog the guttersclog the rain-storm drainsclog our drivewayclog all over our car (and have started destroying the paint). 
    • It takes a very substantial amount of time to keep these under control: I need to climb the roof to deal with the gutters, get into the storm-rain drains to clean them up, keep brooming every day, and as for the car, I've mostly given up, it's done for and now lost substantial resale value.
The amount of ongoing risk, angst, damage, financial burden and time that these trees are costing us is VAST. So much so, that regardless of how pretty these trees may look, or how many birds may be calling these trees home, they are destroying our family's peace, which seems to count for little.

I'd be happy to plant 50 of these trees around our property or neighborhood, as long as the branches don't hang like anvils above our roof, our livingroom, our bedrooms, my daughter's bed.

So I applied to the Lane Cove council to have the trees removed, or at least trimmed so there are no branches above our roof (which admittedly is difficult, since half the canopy is over our house). The response?
  1. Tree 1, at the rear of the property, but with an equal amount of overhanging branches as the front tree in the picture above, is not to be touched.
  2. Tree 2, the one in the picture, can be pruned, but no more than 10% of the foilage is to be removed, and no cuts greater than 10cm in diameter.
Now, based on this... it basically changes nothing. One tree (which is 50% of the problem), is to remain untouched. The other tree can be pruned up to 10%. So basically, this permit reduces my problems by a grand total of 5%. That's great. 5% less risk of being crushed at night. And 5% less time dealing with the costs and risks involved with cleaning up after these trees.

So Lane Cove council clearly refuses to acknowledge the real risk and cost associated with these trees

Which brings me to the purpose of this blog, namely to:
  • Document every interaction I have with the council in relation to these trees.
  • Document every issue that these trees cause to our property and family, including all the costs involved, and all the risks involved, in dealing with them.
  • Document any unfortunate incident that may happen due to the council's refusal to properly deal with these trees.
I hope this will help in getting my situation resolved, and help others that may be in a similar position.

I don't want to have to wait until something like the Gordon Timbs case, where Shoalhaven City Council refused a similar request, and Gordon was crushed to death in his sleep when one of these trees eventually fell down. The Supreme Court of NSW found the council liable, and awarded $750,000 to his surviving wife.

By the way, since this case ruling,  Shoalhaven council now has a 45 degree exemption rule (see section 5.2.2 in their tree preservation act), which states that if a tree's height is such that if it fell it would touch any part of the house, than it is exempt from any permits, and can be cut down at will. This came as a result of a man dying.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Gum Trees, a.k.a the Widowmakers

Calculating risk of fatality from falling tree

Tree killed man after council blocked removal