TREES (DISPUTES BETWEEN NEIGHBOURS) — high hedges — view obstruction — do the trees form a hedge
Quick Take
1Trees planted throughout a garden for shade, privacy, microclimate, and biodiversity purposes — rather than with the result or purpose of forming a hedge — do not satisfy s 14A(1)(a) of the Trees (Disputes Between Neighbours) Act 2006 (NSW), even where some trees happen to appear in a roughly linear arrangement due to the shape of garden beds or lot boundaries.
2An applicant cannot selectively isolate a subset of trees from a broader garden planting, omitting adjacent trees and bridging paths, to artificially construct a 'hedge' for the purposes of Part 2A; the credibility of the hedge determination is undermined by such selective grouping.
3When assessing severity of view obstruction under s 14E(2)(a)(ii), the court must consider the obstructed view as a proportion of the totality of the available view from the relevant location (applying Haindl v Daisch), and a valuable but narrow 'sliver' of beach view within a broad panorama may be found only moderately obstructed overall.
