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 When you buy your first home, or your second, or an investment property, or any land for that matter, can you really consider it yours? What exactly are you paying for? Sometimes it seems like more of a long term lease with payments that continue forever and regulations that don't always seem quite fair, especially in lieu of spending what some people have worked a lifetime to save for.
With laws regarding zoning, eminent domain, or even your trees, sometimes it just seems to be more of a headache than it's worth.
Take for example, the dispute between Carolynn Bissett, Richard Treanor and Mark Vargas. California neighbors who disputed the trees on the land owned by Mr. Treanor and Mrs. Bissett vs. the shade they cast on solar panels later put in place by Mr. Vargas. Not only did a court order two of the trees cut down, but charged Mrs. Bissett and Mr. Treanor with criminal charges via the 1978 Solar Shade Control Act of California, which criminalizes the shading of solar panels by trees. Since the trees were planted 2-4 years earlier than the solar panels were installed, it seems like this should not even have made it past a hearing. Yet, two upstanding residents of California now have criminal charges records. On a larger scale, how about the laws regarding eminent domain? Where do you draw the line on the government telling a large corporation it can take peoples' land for the betterment of them? If you truly are the government, then why are the voices of countless thousands of New Yorkers unheard in the battle of the New York Rochester Interconnect project, a powerline plan that not only threatens to take homes, but destroy much of the skyline of the railroad along the Delaware River. This project was rejected by state government, but approved by the federal government via the Dept of Energy. It seems they have overstepped their boundaries in some way since property laws are the jurisdiction of states, and especially since this project only exists within the limits of New York. If you were to ask people if they mind whether or not their neighbor's yard looked like a junk yard gone awry, they'd probably tell you that they'd rather not have their own property value driven down. If your neighbor wants to put an addition on their house in a community with small lots, they would have to get approval to do so within so many feet of someone else's property. If you live on a mountainside and own 500 acres, it becomes a problem if you cut down 200 acres of trees and cause the topsoil to be washed away by rains, letting it end up in your neighbor's yard. So how do we decide where to draw the line? Is it fair to say you can do whatever you want with your property, but you will be liable for the effects on your neighbors and your community? Should a big corporation be able to run people out of their homes, or devalue them by placing a large, industrial scale factory in their backyard? What about prisons? Where should they go? Perhaps the American Indians had it right in saying no one should assume to own property at all. In a world where so many people have such different values and ideals, the one thing that we can count on is that there will be plenty of clashes of those ideals when it comes to what we can do with our own property. One thing that we can all come together on, that we will all always be permitted to do, is continue to pay the taxes on our long term leases.
Forum Here - Would you cut down your trees for your neighbor?
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