A bitter dispute over bamboo plants has landed two neighbors on a posh Sydney street in court.
Nicholas and Lisa-Maree Beswick bought a $2.5 million four-bedroom property in the leafy Upper North Shore suburb of St Ives Chase, northwest of Sydney, in October 2020.
His house shares a rear boundary with a property owned by David Sandig, whose family has lived there for 30 years.
In 2015, five years before the Beswicks moved to the area, Sandig planted four clumps of thin weaver bamboo near the fence between the two properties.
Although planted one or two meters apart, they grew quickly to form a “dense screen”, according to a ruling released this week by the New South Wales Supreme Court.
“The (Beswicks) alleged that the bamboo was between 3 and 4 meters high at the time of their occupation and that it had subsequently grown to a height of 8 to 10 meters to seriously obstruct their previous view,” the ruling added.
The Bewsicks spoke to Sandig and his son about the fence in 2023 about the bamboo privacy screen before emailing him in November of that year to request that the bamboo be trimmed and also that the fence be replaced.
“On January 2, 2024, Mr. Sandig responded that the applicants had previously acknowledged their ‘need for privacy protection, given that the upstairs windows face directly onto our living room and bedroom windows,'” it notes. the sentence.
Nicholas and Lisa-Maree Beswick bought a $2.5 million four-bedroom property (pictured) in the leafy Upper North Shore suburb of St Ives Chase, northwest of Sydney, in October 2020.
In 2015, five years before the Beswicks moved to the area, Sandig planted four clumps of slender weaver bamboos near the fence between the two properties (pictured: the properties from above).
“Mr Sandig said he had recently extensively pruned his trees and boundary vegetation and noticed an existing tree in the applicants’ backyard that was taller than the bamboo and was screening the applicants’ upstairs windows.”
He said he would remove individual stems as necessary, but would not reduce the height of the bamboo.
Beswick responded later that day saying that the hedge trimming had reduced his own privacy and reiterated his request to Mr Sandig to cut the bamboo “to a height that allows privacy and restores our view of the valley”.
But Sandig did not respond to this email or to a third party who repeated the same request.
The Beswicks then launched their legal battle.
In July, the court visited the properties to view the offending bamboo plants, which had been pruned to a height of 2.5m just five days earlier.
But the court relied on photographs taken in 2023 and this year that “show tall bamboos growing along the common boundary and arching towards the applicants’ property, apparently reaching a height of 8 to 10 m, a height around the of the applicants’ first house. floor windows’.
As a result, Acting Commissioner John Douglas said he was “satisfied that the obstruction of the applicants’ views was recently severe.”
Although the application was rejected, the judge encouraged the Bewsicks to submit another application with more conclusive evidence if the bamboo returned to its “previous ‘wild’ state” (file image).
However, Mr Douglas criticized the “insufficiency” of Beswick’s evidence that their views had deteriorated significantly since they moved, compared to Mr Sandig’s “evidence showing the presence of important common border trees before and after this time.”
“While I accept that the bamboo grew to obstruct the applicants’ views to a greater extent than during the applicants’ occupation, my perception of the situation is that the applicants may have initially obtained wide but narrow views over their trees, but the respondent “retained a high degree of privacy in his home and garden due to the trees,” the ruling states.
Beswick’s case was rejected.
However, Mr Douglas encouraged Mr Sandwick to “manage and maintain the bamboo more effectively than in the past, removing stems that grow towards the applicants and trimming the height of the bamboo”.
“Clearly, the maintenance regime of removing individual stems was inadequate, and it is not difficult to alternatively attach a hook to the end of a previously pruned cut stem and use it to arch long stems downward and reduce their length,” the judgment says.
The judge encouraged the Bewsicks to make another application with more conclusive evidence if the bamboo returned to its “previous ‘wild’ state.”
An attempt was made to contact both parties.