America’s founding father Benjamin Franklin famously mused: love your neighbour, but don’t pull down your hedge.
It’s a pearl of wisdom that may have been taken too seriously by one prominent Mosman family, who have spared no expense in a bitter legal showdown over a hedge at the rear of their lower north shore home.
Snip, snip: the Land and Environment Court ruled on the neighbourly dispute on Friday.
High-powered silks have been called in on both sides in the feud with their equally well-heeled neighbours, who are furious that the lilly pilly had obscured their views of the city skyline.
Over the course of multiple court hearings the opposing lawyers, who typically charge thousands of dollars a day, debated the finer points of law, concerning the present and past tense of “obstructing”.
Now the Land and Environment Court has, for the second time, ordered Amanda Unsworth, the daughter-in-law of former NSW premier Barrie, to take the secateurs to the hedge.
Chief Justice Brian Preston savaged Unsworth’s “opportunistic” pruning of the hedge two days before the hearing.
Unsworth admitted in court she intended to allow the hedge to grow back to its previous height, but argued the court must assess the degree of obstruction at the moment in time the hearing took place.
Preston did not agree.
“This assessment of the trees concerned must also be undertaken with the recognition that the trees are dynamic living organisms that grow and change over time, both in their overall life cycle from germination to death and in their seasonal life cycle from season to season,” Preston wrote in his judgment, published on Friday.
“The court’s assessment of whether the trees concerned ‘are severely obstructing’ can have regard to not only any obstruction that has occurred or is occurring but also any obstruction that will occur.”
The hedge at the centre of the dispute runs along the eastern boundary of the family home that Amanda Unsworth purchased for $3.1 million in 2004. Amanda is the long-time spouse of Tim Unsworth, a lawyer and the son of the former Labor premier.
Artist Lucy Hennessy snapped up the neighbouring home on Union Street for $3.3 million in 2009. With her husband John Hennessy, who is a senior counsel, the family enjoyed a sweeping view of the North Sydney skyline from the western facade of the residence.
In 2022, neighbourly relations soured after Unsworth grew her hedge to about 600 millimetres above the fence, swallowing up the Hennessys’ views over Cremorne and Neutral Bay.
In April 2023, Hennessy applied for court orders to force Unsworth to prune the hedge and keep it at the height of the dividing fence between the properties.
Amanda Unsworth opposed the orders, but two days before the court hearing pruned the hedge to about 400 millimetres above the fence.
She admitted in court she intended to allow the hedge to regrow to its previous height.
Unsworth’s barrister argued the court was obliged to assess whether the hedge severely obstructed views at its present height, not at the height it may have been in the past or which it may reach in the future.
In December, acting commissioner David Galwey found the hedge severely obstructed the view from the west-facing windows of Hennessy’s home so that only the sky remained visible above the trees.
Galwey ordered the twice-yearly pruning of the hedge to a height of no more than 150 millimetres above the fence. In coming to the decision, he considered the view not only on the day of the hearing but the “most likely the ongoing state of affairs here”.
Unsworth appealed against the decision on six grounds, arguing the court had made errors in its interpretation and application of the Trees Act, and had denied her procedural fairness.
Her lawyers submitted that the Trees Act made use of the present tense and therefore the court should deal with the presently existing state of affairs, not the “ongoing” state of affairs.
Preston rejected all of the grounds of appeal, and ordered that Unsworth pay costs.
Neither party returned the Herald’s calls on Sunday.
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