Owners of SP 37485 v Owners of SP 4193

Land and Environment Court New South Wales Medium Neutral Citation: Owners of SP 37485 v Owners of SP 4193 [2014] NSWLEC 1185 Hearing dates:8 September 2014Decision date: 08 September 2014 Jurisdiction:Class 2Before: Moore SC Decision: Application dismissed Catchwords: TREES: Likelihood of injury Legislation Cited: Trees (Disputes Between Neighbours) Act 2007 Category:Principal judgmentParties: Owners of SP 37485 (Applicant Owners of SP 4193 (Respondent) Representation: Mr M Powis, agent (Applicant) Mr R Rutherford, agent (Respondent) File Number(s):20451 of 2014 JudgmentThis decision was given as an extemporaneous decision and has been edited prior to publicationThese proceedings are an application pursuant to Part 2 of the Trees (Disputes Between Neighbours) Act 2007 concerning a Melaleuca of substantial size, approximately 1.2 m in diameter at breast height, located slightly uphill and on the adjacent property to the property whose strata plan has made the application. The application is based on a risk of injury - a fear held by the strata plan on behalf of its two owners in the dwellings within it. Each of those dwellings has a bedroom that is in the vicinity of the spread of the canopy of the tree. The tree is a substantial Melaleuca being of the order of 10 m or so in height. It has multiple leaders with the first bifurcation of the trunk occurring at about 2.5 m above the ground. The tree is growing on a comparatively confined space between the two strata plans' buildings; it is adjacent to but not touched by the fence...