There is trouble with the trees.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Take, for instance, the Chinese pine across the street from retired baseball star John Olerud’s Clyde Hill home.
John and Kelly Olerud see an eyesore that blocks the view of the Seattle skyline from their new, custom-built home.
The owners of the pine, Bruce and Linda Baker, see the natural beauty of a rare tree that stands sentinel over the family’s backyard patio.
Olerud, a former Seattle Mariner, one-time American League batting champ and three-time Gold Glove winner, has been asking the Bakers for more than two years if he can pay to have the tree cut down.
For two-plus years, the Bakers have refused.
Now the Oleruds want the Clyde Hill Board of Adjustment to order their neighbors to cut down the tree, saying it unreasonably obstructs the view from their $4 million property facing Lake Washington, Seattle and the Olympic Mountains…
In Clyde Hill, a city of almost 3,000 between Bellevue and Medina, property values are closely associated with views.
The city says it was the first in the area and one of the first in the nation to adopt a process for condemning trees that block too much of neighbors’ sunlight or scenic views.
To date, no tree has been cut under that 20-year-old law…
Olerud said he would be willing to buy a replacement tree that wouldn’t block his view.
In an effort to placate Olerud, Baker cut down a small coast redwood, agreed to remove the spruce and had the pine pruned in a way intended to allow some of the viewscape to show through. But he wasn’t willing to cut down a tree that his arborist called very rare and valued at $18,000…
The Board of Adjustment is expected to make a decision in November if the neighbors don’t reach an agreement.
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1. WahooSam Posted: September 11, 2012 at 08:50 PM (#4233152)Yeah, I could see his complaint if he bought the house before the tree started to grow, but the tree was there long before Olerud.
Yeah, always seemed like a nice guy. But, ####### move.
Also, bringing religion into it (especially when the other guy is a pastor) is kind of a dick move by Olerud.
If I were Baker, I'd offer to trade houses...
He made almost $70M. I have to think he could afford a house on the other side of the street.
Wait, a grad student/pastor can afford a house in that neighborhood? Where did I go wrong?
Because although Olerud played for Toronto, he's not actually a Canadian.
According to the article, he's an ex-Microsoft manager, and founded a company he later sold to Hewlett-Packard. I suspect he's rather well off.
Its always those damn arborists. The tree looks good to me but what do I know? I am from New Mexico and still am in somewhat awe of the wilderness (and green) I live in now up in the Northeast.
Yeah Reverend! Didn't you read the part of the Bible about "thou shalt not obstruct views of tourist attractions"!?
Like looking at trees is bad.
LOOKING AT TREES IS NOT BAD.
My sense is that California view laws protect the views people purchase from infringement. That actually kind of makes sense. Why should your neighbors' decision to plant tall trees lower your property values? But I've never heard of having a right to proactively force your neighbors to improve your view from the one you bought. Madness.
My sense is that California view laws protect the views people purchase from infringement. That actually kind of makes sense. Why should your neighbors' decision to plant tall trees lower your property values? But I've never heard of having a right to proactively force your neighbors to improve your view from the one you bought. Madness.
Yeah, this is a terrible ordinance. If the tree had already been there, that's one thing, but building it there with full knowledge that the tree is there and complaining about it later? Pure dickishness.
My recollection of cases involving homes and trees were always related to branches encroaching on adjacent property and damages either caused, or likely to be caused as a result. The tree owners are not undefeated in those cases.
I recall a very old weeping willow tree (a very tall/wide tree, great for climbing as a kid, impossible to hit a golf ball through it) being removed from our neighborhood, after the adjacent owner threatened to sue, as the trees roots were causing all kinds of issues to the guy's water pipes.
If I was Bruce Baker, I'd hang a gigantic sign on my tree that said "EAT #### OLERUD."
Even better, drape a tarp over the top in the shape of a batting helmet.
To be fair, according to TFA, no trees have ever been cut down under the ordinance, and this is only the third case brought to the board. That's not to say that the existence of the ordinance itself hasn't led to any homeowners cutting down trees rather than go through what the Bakers are dealing with now, but it's not like the town is going around chopping down trees willy-nilly (although this did happen to my parents once in suburban New York. There was a tree on the border with a neighbors' property, one day they got home from work and all that was left was a stump. Neither my parents nor the neighbors knew whose property the tree was on and both assumed that the other had cut it down without asking. They were both pissed off until they started talking about it and realized neither of them had cut it down. Apparently the town had done so because the tree was too close to the road or something like that.)
After all, Olerud said, the Bakers maintain their own view by trimming smaller trees on the lake side of their property."
It's THEIR PROPERTY John, and THEY bought a lakeside house. Let it go.
Amen.
That stupid Elizabeth Hasselbeck just makes me so darn mad. It angries up the blood and makes me cranky.
I believe they are the Australian variant of the Ticket Oak.
Ha!
This is what boggles the mind. If the Oleruds cared so much about the view, why didn't they buy a house that already had one?
Doing it this way was cheaper.
Bart: [chuckles] Locusts! [holds box] They'll drive him _nuts_.
Homer: It's all in the Bible, son: it's the prankster's bible.
But it turns out that marshes harbor mosquitoes and greenheads, so the house is virtually unusuble in the summer. Sometimes, God restores faith.
I AM DISAPPOINT
I think a lot of jurisdictions have responded to this kind of thing by moving away from fines, and just making you tear the whole thing down.
I understand the town in question (rhymes with Grog) has done just that.
I have to say, I have trouble with this song. I mean, on the surface Libertarian anthem. But the Oaks "wonder why the Maples can't be happy in their shade". Maples die in the shade. So I prefer to think of this song as a classic ########### that occurs when people cannot compromise. Probably that's cognitive dissonance.
Tree at my window, window tree,
You block my view of Puget Sound;
Why do they keep your bulk around?
I CANNOT SEE!
Vague dream-head lifted out of earth,
And thing next most akin to awe,
I'd love to stroke your mighty girth
With my chain saw.
Mm-hmm, and then you have to restore the wetlands to their previous state.
I prefer to think of this song as a discussion of the classic North American climax forest: pine --> oak/hickory --> beech/maple. The maples don't need a union, as Rush claims. They're slow growing and do well in a shady environment, and will eventually outgrow and outlive the oaks. There's no need for the maples to get angry at the oaks, because unless there's a fire the oaks are doomed. It may take a century, but what's a century to a tree?
See:
Isn't this going on in Washington?
See:
Build lots and lots of crevices for barn swallow nests. One summer, my childhood home had 5 nests with a total of 22 babies in them. So that's 10 adults and 22 babies being fed on insects. I don't think there was a flying insect left within a several block radius.
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