Tunnel cut in controversial hedge
Some call it a treasure, others a danger, either way the hedge taller than a giraffe at the centre of a council battle received a savage chopping by its reluctant owner.
On Wednesday Vince Osborne set his hedge trimmer running through the 7-metre macrocarpa hedge planted by his grandfather in the 1930s at Waikanae Beach.
Osborne was cutting a tunnel along the bottom of the hedge - a compromise offered by Kapiti Coast District Council after it commissioned a raft of reports and even checked who owned the land under Osborne’s feet.
In January it was revealed the Osborne family was fighting to save the hedge at the front of their home - a familiar feature on Te Moana Rd, at the gateway to Waikanae Beach.
Osborne said the family received a letter from eight neighbours, saying the hedge was a traffic hazard. The same letter was also sent to the council.
The family were then called by the council and told another a letter was on its way, requesting that the hedge be cut back by February 22.
The council wanted the entire frontage of the hedge cut back, which would leave bare branches, permanently without greenery. Then the family were given an extension till April to have the work done.
Yesterday Osborne said the section of hedge he was cutting back would never regenerate, and ‘‘that would be how it looked till it died’’.
The council bullied the family, he said, and backed up its efforts with a series of reports including traffic safety, an arborist’s report and a survey to see whose land the hedge was actually on.
Council infrastructure services group manager Sean Mallon said once the independent report on safety confirmed the hedge was a hazard to traffic and pedestrians, the council was forced to act.
He said the council offered the compromise of cutting the corri- dor along the bottom of the hedge, which would meet the recommendations of the safety report.
‘‘If he’s doing that for the full length of the hedge, then that would be great.’’
Mallon said the survey work ‘‘confirmed the council’s view’’ that the hedge was on road reserve, and the hedge could be removed without consultation.
‘‘I wouldn’t consider that the council has bullied them. Our primary concern has been safety.’’