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Fred's mowing
10-08-2009, 09:57 PM
We recently removed a hedge that was hard up against a house & a fire hazard. The hedge was around 15-18feet high, but the council regarded them as individual trees, measured their girths & fined us $500 ;dealers; . Be carefull.
Cheers Dean.

New pics coming

geoff1969
10-08-2009, 10:06 PM
there decent sized ones .
and $500 is a lot money , what was the girth of them ? if you dont mind me asking .
cheers

Andy B
11-08-2009, 08:07 AM
Great before and after shots, shame they cost so much :(

Bluey
11-08-2009, 07:34 PM
Are they treating them as significant trees. What does the legislation say they are using against you?

Fred's mowing
11-08-2009, 10:19 PM
City of Bayside, ALL trees that exceed 155cm circ at 1 meter above ground level require a permit. for multi trunked trees the circumferences must be added together :o .
Cheers Dean.
Ps. Some of the trees exceede this , some didnt. We could have legally taken out some but would have had to left others :rolleyes: .

geoff1969
11-08-2009, 11:52 PM
City of Bayside, ALL trees that exceed 155cm circ at 1 meter above ground level require a permit. for multi trunked trees the circumferences must be added together :o .
Cheers Dean.
Ps. Some of the trees exceede this , some didnt. We could have legally taken out some but would have had to left others :rolleyes: .


bugger :mad:
so was it just a fine or do you have to re-plant x-amount of trees
as well ?
my neighbour cut down one tree about 4 years ago some one reported him he got fined as it was over x-amount of circumference at 1 meter , he also had to plant minimum 12 natives plants / shrubs in its place and at time of planting thay had to be a minimum of 18 inches in height abouve soil line and then inspected by council .
thay also taged them and came back 12 months later
to make sure a minimum of 8 plants still existed :i dunno:
i think a few have died since then :laughing:

Bluey
12-08-2009, 07:45 AM
If I was you I would contest the fine. The is an avenue to do it informally first so use it. I don't know if you knew about the legislation or not but claim you didn't and ask them to consider a caution instead of the fine. Is it your first offence. If they say no then I would seek to have it resolved in court.

A lot of Councils are loath to take cases to court due to the cost and even if it does you can attend yourself and just play dumb and let the magistrate decide what the fine should be. A lot of Magistrates see local laws such as these as petty and often decide against the council.

You have a good case in that it was a fire danger and the householder engaged you to do the job. Did they fine the householder as well. If they didn't why not. Did the council compliance officer even interview you in regards to the offence or did they just send you the fine. Did you remove the stumps. If you did how do they know the size of the trees.

I would be interested to know what evidence they have to prove their case. Many Councils do not have a very professional compliance team and stuff up their cases because they fail to investigate them properly or gain the proper evidence. In a lot of cases with trees it is not even the Council compliance officers doing but Planners who have bugger all knowledge about the law.

Also another thing to do is scream blue murder to all the Councillors and Mayor and tell them you are going to the media and the current affairs shows and your going to bag them there over thier heavy handed approach. Councils hate bad publicity and will in most cases try to negotiate their way out of situations like that. Managers and General Managers in Councils now days are almost always swishy swashy spineless save the whale types so they will try to get a win win situation.

I would definitely not just pay the fine. Make the buggers earn their money. You might be surprised how it turns out.

Bluey
12-08-2009, 08:00 AM
This significant tree legislation is crap. It is hog tying house owner across the country. You can plant the bloody tree and cut it down below the set height but once it gets there you cannot touch it.

I have a client who built his house 25 yrs ago. There was little gum tree growing in the back corner so he left it. It has now grown and is a significant tree. It's roots are damaging his and his neighbours pipes, branches fall on his shed and his neighbours, leaves are dropping all over the place and it is uplifting the fence.

He approached Council to remove it and they won't have a bar of it. All his neighbours want it gone and he would cut it down tomorrow but is stuck with it because some dopey pimple face planner fresh out of Uni is sitting on his arse saying it is over a certain size so it is significant.

There is no common sense applied to this law. My advice is if you have a tree that can grow to the size of a significant tree cut it down and remove it before it does because you won't be able to do so when it grows up.

I have a massive gum tree on the verge between me and my neighbour. Council planted it years ago in their wisdom right under the power lines. I shake my head on that logic. In the wind it moves around and really scares me. It has potential to drop on my house or my neighbours and cause massive damage.

It uplifts the road way, the footpath and has recently broke the water mains. Council fixes all these at great cost but the bloody tree remains. The branches have grown up right through the power lines and ETSA comes and trims the every now and then. It drops leaves 24/7 by the bucket load and I have to clean my gutters regularly due to it. I clean out my driveway every weekend of leaves or gum nuts. It drops branches sometimes really big ones. It is a real bloody danger and nuisance but try as I might I cannot get the Council to remove it.

The idiots recently up graded their street trees in the area. Took out a lot of old diseased gums and other trees. What did they plant, You guessed it gum trees. And where did they plant them. You guessed it under the bloody power lines. Complete incompetent fools.

administrator
12-08-2009, 08:55 AM
Who votes these people in.

I do believe the owner was fined the same amount this is generally the rule of thumb double dipping i guess .

Bluey
12-08-2009, 09:14 AM
Who votes these people in.

I do believe the owner was fined the same amount this is generally the rule of thumb double dipping i guess .


That's just it because not many people vote in local government elections Councillors can get in on the strength of acouple of hundred votes.

But this is not the Councillors at work. This is the administration. These are the council staff paid to do the job. The legislation is probably State legislation given to Council to enforce because the state does not want to do it.

Most laws of this nature allow for both the property owner and the person doing it to be fined but it is not normally both unless there is good reason. Normally you would go for the principal offender ie. who was most at fault. If the householder knew they were significant trees but went ahead and hired someone to do it anyway regardless if it was me pursuing it I would go the householder. I would interview all concerned and have a look at their history before deciding which way to jump. On the other hand if the contractor knew and the housholder didn't I would go the contractor.

If they had all cooperated and there was no history and given these trees were on private property, planted by the owner and posed a safety risk I would probably issue a caution to all concerned.

Issuing fines is the easy way out. In most states once the fine is issued it is taken over by a Fines Payment Unit (FPU) or some such authority and the issuing authority doesn't have to worry about chasing it up unless the defendant goes not guilty. Not sure if that is still the case as i have been out of that scene for over 10 yrs now.

What a Magistrate will look at is if the Council has acted fairly and what other avenues it had other than fining the people first up. It is not like it is a parking fine. It has a significant value and as i said before i would definitely contest it first up.

Keep us posted on this one.

Fred's mowing
30-10-2009, 08:08 PM
A big Thank-you to Dean (Admin) for helping with an insurance claim in regard to this matter. We recently took out liability insurance through INDI mowing as it offered an additional cover for statutory liability. Little did we know we would be using it so quickly. :rolleyes: Many thanks again

Cheers Dean

Tender Lovin Lawn&Garden
31-10-2009, 06:37 AM
This significant tree legislation is crap. It is hog tying house owner across the country. You can plant the bloody tree and cut it down below the set height but once it gets there you cannot touch it.

I have a client who built his house 25 yrs ago. There was little gum tree growing in the back corner so he left it. It has now grown and is a significant tree. It's roots are damaging his and his neighbours pipes, branches fall on his shed and his neighbours, leaves are dropping all over the place and it is uplifting the fence.

He approached Council to remove it and they won't have a bar of it. All his neighbours want it gone and he would cut it down tomorrow but is stuck with it because some dopey pimple face planner fresh out of Uni is sitting on his arse saying it is over a certain size so it is significant.

There is no common sense applied to this law. My advice is if you have a tree that can grow to the size of a significant tree cut it down and remove it before it does because you won't be able to do so when it grows up.

I have a massive gum tree on the verge between me and my neighbour. Council planted it years ago in their wisdom right under the power lines. I shake my head on that logic. In the wind it moves around and really scares me. It has potential to drop on my house or my neighbours and cause massive damage.

It uplifts the road way, the footpath and has recently broke the water mains. Council fixes all these at great cost but the bloody tree remains. The branches have grown up right through the power lines and ETSA comes and trims the every now and then. It drops leaves 24/7 by the bucket load and I have to clean my gutters regularly due to it. I clean out my driveway every weekend of leaves or gum nuts. It drops branches sometimes really big ones. It is a real bloody danger and nuisance but try as I might I cannot get the Council to remove it.

The idiots recently up graded their street trees in the area. Took out a lot of old diseased gums and other trees. What did they plant, You guessed it gum trees. And where did they plant them. You guessed it under the bloody power lines. Complete incompetent fools.

Mate one night go out and drill holes in it just at or below the suface level fill them with poision and then cover the holes up with dirt or mulch. couple of weeks later Oh well that tree died must be old age or white ants any way lets chop it down now.

Bluey
31-10-2009, 07:15 AM
Mate one night go out and drill holes in it just at or below the suface level fill them with poision and then cover the holes up with dirt or mulch. couple of weeks later Oh well that tree died must be old age or white ants any way lets chop it down now.


The thought had crossed my mind but they would know it was me because of all the fuss I have kicked up about it.

ian
31-10-2009, 05:18 PM
The thought had crossed my mind but they would know it was me because of all the fuss I have kicked up about it.
remember it's not what they know it's what they can prove :)
and bluey the mistake you made was not getting rid of it as soon as they put it in