I wasn't sure whether to put this under Land Surveying, Legal Issues, GIS, or Humor, so I picked Legal Issues because that's where it's heading. A dispute over cutting trees.
The Oregonian: Neighbor brazen whacks down trees
That is very similar to a situation I was involved with over 15 years ago. In this case, the neighbor was one of the higher ups in the city administration. He decided the adjoiner's (my client's) trees were stealing sunlight from his backyard so he hired a contractor to remove a number of them and hack on others and told the contractor they were on his property. My client won in court, but not nearly enough to offset his perceived injury. Meanwhile, the bully got his way, even if it cost him some money.
lives in a hilly Southwest Portland neighborhood nestled below Council Crest."... "at his Southwest Altadena Avenue home."...
"lives on the next street over -- Southwest Redondo Avenue"
That whole place sounds toney, $36k doesn't sound near enough to me. 🙂
He had a photo showing the property line, what could be wrong with that?
More Info
I looked at the county GIS and tax maps. The disputed area is in Ms. Furey's side yard and Mr. Jansky's back yard.
This dispute is in a small platted subdivision. It appears that the west 27 feet of the original lot now owned by Mr. Jansky was conveyed to Ms. Furey, probably around 1976-1977. The assessor shows this as a separate tax lot, not combined with Ms. Furey's lot. In 1976, a topographic/boundary survey was conducted monumenting the east line of the 27 foot strip and certain other corners in addition to tying the corners of Ms. Furey's lot and another lot to the south (not Mr. Jansky's). The trees look like they are in this 27 foot strip.
> That whole place sounds toney, $36k doesn't sound near enough to me. 🙂
Assessed value of homes in the area is around $500k (entry level homes go for the mid to high $200k's in PDX). So it's an upscale neighborhood, but not ostentatious.
Cutting trees in Portland is a crime considered just slightly less heinous than murder. I think she could have valued those trees much higher than she has.
http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2016/01/what_ever_happened_to_that_201_1.html#1&apos ;">A Southwest Portland resident who sued her neighbor, alleging he cut down six large pine trees in her yard without permission, has settled her suit in mediation. Terms of the settlement weren't publicly disclosed, but Carolyn Furey had sought about $36,000 from her neighbor Andrew Jansky.