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Posted on 02/01/2024 6:46:08 AM PST by Twotone
If you need more evidence that America has become a "permission-slip" society, look no further than the City of Portland, Oregon, requiring homeowners to get permits to remove trees that've fallen on their houses during recent winter storms.
Portland alt-weekly Willamette Week published a story last week about Joel and Sarah Bonds, who had a large Douglas Fir in the backyard squash their house after it became weighed down with ice. The tree barely missed the Bonds' young daughter and cat.
As it turns out, the couple were not unaware of the danger posed by the tree. In 2021, they'd applied for a necessary city permit to cut down the tree and another in their backyard. The city's Urban Forestry division turned them down, citing the trees' apparent health and the damage their removal would do to the "neighborhood character."
That decision rankles the Bonds now. Making them even more mad is the fact that the city is requiring them to obtain a $100 retroactive removal permit for the one tree that fell on their house and plant a new one in its place at their own expense.
A Forestry Department employee also advised them to hire an arborist to chop down the second, still-standing tree, but that they should take care to document the work in case they'd need to apply for another removal permit. According to the Willamette Week story, the couple could risk daily $1,000 fines for removing the tree without a permit.
The Bonds aren't the only homeowners being required to get retroactive removal permits for trees knocked down by the weather. This fact has provoked local outrage and calls for a change in policy.
A recent Oregonian editorial argues that the city should suspend the need to get retroactive removal permits for weather-downed trees, noting that neighboring cities in the area are not requiring such permits. One lawyer who spoke to the paper argued that the city code doesn't obviously apply to trees felled by bad weather.
The city maintains that the removal permits are required by the city code and that city council action is needed to waive those permitting requirements.
The whole episode is an illustration of how property rights have been turned on their head in America's cities. The city regulates tree removal to protect surrounding property owners' interest in the shade and character of the neighborhood. Homeowners' interests in doing what they please on their land are of secondary concern, even though they have to bear all costs and liabilities associated with keeping these trees on their properties.
If you would like more information about what’s happening in Oregon, please FReepmail me. Please send me your name by FReepmail if you want to be on this list.
Communism.
Keep voting RAT and trying to exist in their shiteholes, and pretty soon, there’ll be a permit requirement to breathe air through an anti-pollution exhaust helmet...
Read Max Weber “On Bureaucracy...”
As I recollect Governor Abbott of Texas had a tree fall on him that left him disabled and that he wound up collecting $12 million for his injuries.
Oregon only has ten billion trees to replace it.
You mean this?
“a “state” is a polity that maintains a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence.”
Oregon is run by psychopaths. We moved out 3 years ago to Oklahoma and have never looked back. So sad. Such a beautiful state.
“Oregon only has ten billion trees to replace it”
Yeah but it ain’t about that....democrat cities gotta milk every dime possible until the nurple turns purple.
Portland is overrun by insane libs. Too bad for the next generation since they should be wealthy beyond their dreams.
Portland votes for it.
Democrats and their regulations. I think the Bhagavad Gita was referencing Democrats when Vishnu said, “I am become Death, the Destroyer of worlds.”
Pure and complete insanity. Insanity, a word necessary to use too much in this country.
Sad how he next generation is not going to experience the abundance of Oregon.
Good thing they weren’t doing this after the 1962 Columbus Day storm. There were downed trees everywhere. Two big Douglas firs fell into our backyard, crushing the jungle gym and just brushing the house with their tips. We had firewood for years.
Portland.
Oregon.
Insanity.
But I repeat myself.
I wonder if Portland has the same policy for removing trees that have downed power lines? It could take six months to a year to restore power, provided the bureaucrats could tear themselves away from their DEI training sessions long enough to approve the permits.
Does Portland even have power lines anymore, given that electricity was invented by Benjamin Franklin, the lightbulb was invented by Thomas Edison, and electric utilities are inherently white supremacist?
Elect democrats and this is what you get.
You have to get their permission to live your own private life.
Someone turn off Portland’s lights. Let them then figure things out.
Portland…..where people move to because Berkeley is too conservative.
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