Sometimes these things drag on and on and on. Years. Decades. Past the time when the house is sold, the trees removed, the owners dead. Read this article from the San Francisco Chronicle for how obsessive some people can be about their views, and others can be about their trees, or not their trees, for that matter.
Fascinating!
Fight over Oakland trees, views not over
Matthai Kuruvila
By the time
Phyllis Bishop
won the right to trim and clear her neighbors' trees and regain the
panoramic bay view from her Oakland hills home, 25 years had passed, her
husband Lloyd had died, and she was living in a retirement home.
Bishop,
95, sighed with relief at the victory of an epic legal and political
battle with her neighbors that went all the way to the state
Supreme Court.
Yet, once the neighbors' trees were cleared this year, Bishop noticed
that city trees blocked the view from her property, violating a
city ordinance.
It didn't matter that she no longer lived in her
home, which she is now renting. She began negotiating for the clearing
of the city trees - the cost of which she would pay - out of a sense of
justice and on grounds that it affects the property's value. The city
agreed, but one set of neighbors objected.
"Guess who?" Bishop said.
That would be Okhoo and
Ernest Hanes, the neighbors who lost their fight with her to keep their trees.
They - like Bishop - no longer live in their Oakland hills home but rent it out. They now live in Napa.
The
Bishops and the Haneses once lived near each other in the hills, tied
only by a property line until the decades-long feud intertwined them.
Tuesday, they'll go before the City Council for what Bishop hopes will
be the last fight.
Okhoo Hanes
is unsure the end of the battle is near, even though she and her
husband, both 55, have lost more than $200,000 in legal fees and many
trees they cherished.
Asked whether she would sue or take another tack if the city agrees to remove the trees, Okhoo Hanes said, "I don't know."
The
trees in question are mostly acacias, though the city says Bishop
should also be allowed to trim some branches from five large
Monterey cypresses and Monterey pines.
A home with a view
Phyllis and
Lloyd Bishop moved into their home in 1964. They could see Alcatraz, the
Golden Gate Bridge and Treasure Island.
"To
own a part of this beautiful part of the world was a privilege," said
Phyllis, who was born in Oakland and who, like her husband, was an
Oakland schoolteacher. "We'd traveled. We knew this was special."
Wary
that developers would build up the property below them, she said they
successfully sought an easement ensuring nothing would be built to block
their view before they bought the house. But it only referred
to buildings.
"It didn't refer to vegetation," she said ruefully. "We didn't anticipate that."
For
23 years, the Bishops asked their neighbors if they could pay for the
tree trimming. The neighbors always said yes, said Phyllis.
Then,
in 1984, the Haneses moved in. Three years later, the Bishops saw that
it was time for a trimming. Six previous owners of the Hanes home had
always agreed. The Haneses didn't.
"It had no effect on the people who owned the property, but it maintained the view," she said.
The
Bishops say they tried to talk to the Haneses. They asked their city
councilman to intervene. They suggested a mediator. They offered to buy
land covered by the foliage.
"They wouldn't talk about it at all," Bishop said. "Finally, we sued them."
The
Bishops used Oakland's View Ordinance as their justification. The
ordinance allows property owners to restore "a reasonable amount of the
view that they had when they purchased their property, whether the trees
are growing on public or private property," according to a city report.
Native trees and trees on park property are exempt.
After the
city reworked its ordinance, the courts ultimately upheld the Bishops'
contention that they had the right to trim the trees.
Councilwoman
Libby Schaaf grew up within a mile of the disputed trees and now represents the area.
"It's
one of the things that's amazing about Oakland: We have bay views while
still living in the forest," she said. "But trees do grow taller. ...
It's tragic that this neighborhood dispute has gone on so long and taken
up public resources."
Seeking sanctuary
The
Haneses, too, believe in the righteousness of their cause. Where the
Bishops saw expansiveness in the treeless view, the Haneses found the
sanctuary that comes with living among trees.
The trees "gave a
sense of seclusion," said Okhoo Hanes. Despite the urban setting, she
said the trees meant "we had a feeling of living in a hideaway."
After
the state Supreme Court denied their appeal last October - two days
after Lloyd Bishop died at age 89 - the Haneses were forced to clear
their trees.
"After the tree removal, we lost a sense of enclosure," she said.
In the current appeal, the Haneses say that landslides are a risk. An engineer disagrees. In addition, city staffers note, the
Fire Department had "excessive vegetation" in the area removed in 2009, and no landslides occurred.
Both sides see slights
Both
sides have an accounting of slights. Phyllis Bishop remembers welcoming
the Haneses to the neighborhood, she said, only to have Okhoo respond
rudely. Okhoo Hanes said it still stings to think of how the Bishops,
she says, said that land with just wild trees and shrubs had no value.
"That's
an example of the attitude they showed toward us," Okhoo Hanes said.
"They didn't value our ownership even though they were adamant in
asserting their property rights."
Both families talk of the
children raised in their homes. Bishop hopes that one of her two adult
children will eventually live in the property.
"I've done about
all I can do," Bishop said. "I'm going to try to outlive them. I don't
know if I will or not. Would you care to place a bet?"
This article has been corrected since it appeared in print versions.
By Randy Shaw
Strawberry Canyon. Photo credit: 
