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Guy Can't Legally Cut Down Tree, Knocks it Down with Bulldozer

When this guy was faced with a dumb law getting in the way, this guy decided to fight back with a Cat. The logistics around tree removal can lead to some interesting drama. Here are some more loopholes clever people exploited.

Posted by MinWage
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  • 1
    Text - Posted by u/kg1206 16 hours ago 3 Illegal to cut down trees? Fine, I won't "cut" them down. oc L This isn't my story but it's a pretty well known one around my town. My town had some pretty strict bylaws about cutting down trees within town limits. It's because we're part of a green belt or something meaning we have to maintain a certain amount of green space on our properties. So for example you can't just pave over your entire front lawn for extra parking spaces and any existing trees o
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  • 2
    Text - Where this became a problem was in 2016 when a massive ice storm hit that knocked out power for 3 or 4 days. It also severely damaged a large tree on the front lawn of a 25 acre lot just on the edge of town. The man who owned the lot was a retired farmer, about 80 years old, who was a well known figure in the community. He had built the house pretty far back off the road on his property and right next to a massive tree, the same one that was now damaged by the ice storm.
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  • 3
    Text - Spring came and the tree died and looked like it was now in danger of falling on the house. He had a local tree service come out to inspect it and they confirmed that if something wasn't done that the dead tree could fall down, possibly towards the house, since there was a large split forming in the trunk as a result of the ice storm damage. The tree service couldn't do anything without the man getting permission from the town first since the tree would need to come down. Trimming would h
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  • 4
    Text - The man went and applied for a permit to have the tree service come out and cut down the tree and provided them with the quote from the tree service stating that it was a hazard. For whatever reason the permit was denied by the town with no real reason given. With a nasty thunderstorm in the forecast, which he feared might send the tree crashing down on his house, and the town not giving him permission to do anything about it he decided to take matters into his own hands and got a hold of
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  • 5
    Text - The town had made a pretty serious mistake in writing their bylaws. Have you ever noticed how laws are always written in a really strange over complicated way? Well this is done on purpose to try and minimise any creative misinterpretations of the law. Our town however had written some of its bylaws in more or less plain English saying that it was illegal to cut down trees without approval from the town. Note the word "cut" in that sentence, this is important. After a quick phone call to
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  • 6
    Text - Anyways the next day when the bylaw officer, knowing full well that his permit had been denied, caught him cutting up the already fallen tree he stopped to investigate. The man calmly explained that he had been using the bulldozer, which was still sitting on the front lawn, to tear up a section of dead grass so he could re seed it when he had accidentally bumped into the tree with the blade causing it to fall over away from the house in the opposite direction from where it had been leanin
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  • 7
    Text - He took it to court and won as the town's bylaw stated that cutting down trees without a permit was illegal but it said nothing about pushing them over with heavy earth moving equipment. The bylaw was changed and has since been repealed entirely and you're pretty much allowed to do whatever you want with your property as long as it maintains the green space requirements.
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    MinWage
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