Dad ordered to pull down treehouse

Subject: Dad ordered to pull down treehouse
From: Gedpipes
Date: 21 Nov 08 - 06:03 AM

state of Britain to-day
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/3485563/Father-ordered-to-pull-down-invisible-treehouse.html

Subject: RE: Dad ordered to pull down treehouse
From: Paul Burke
Date: 21 Nov 08 - 06:11 AM

There have been cases like this for at least forty years that I can remember. They are more usually in someone's back garden in a suburb, and the jobsworths who enforce the orders are probably Telegraph readers.

Subject: RE: Dad ordered to pull down treehouse
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 21 Nov 08 - 06:16 AM

I certainly don't see any problems with that treehouse, but what I think the other residents are worried about is summed up in the last sentence of the article:

>[It] is located within a registered Historic Landscape and could set a precedent for further similar developments.

It wouldn't take much to abuse it, especially if someone (obviously not this dad) figured out a way to make money from doing something similar.

Subject: RE: Dad ordered to pull down treehouse
From: greg stephens
Date: 21 Nov 08 - 06:17 AM

Good decision. Let one person have a treehouse, the next minute they'll all be wanting one. Where will it end, eh?

Subject: RE: Dad ordered to pull down treehouse
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 21 Nov 08 - 06:19 AM

Depends on how you define "treehouse"...

Subject: RE: Dad ordered to pull down treehouse
From: greg stephens
Date: 21 Nov 08 - 06:23 AM

Use the 1954 definition, it's not rocket science.

Subject: RE: Dad ordered to pull down treehouse
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 21 Nov 08 - 06:25 AM

Tell that to someone with a buck to make -

Subject: RE: Dad ordered to pull down treehouse
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 21 Nov 08 - 06:32 AM

He should take a couple of squirrels to it and take pictures. Then claim that they turned into their nest. Then let the conservationists take up his cause.

Subject: RE: Dad ordered to pull down treehouse
From: Paul Burke
Date: 21 Nov 08 - 06:33 AM

It's true that people do occasionally try it on.

Subject: RE: Dad ordered to pull down treehouse
From: Suegorgeous
Date: 21 Nov 08 - 06:47 AM

what has this thread got to do with music?

Subject: RE: Dad ordered to pull down treehouse
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 21 Nov 08 - 07:26 AM

I wonder why Telegraph readers are typified in that fashion?

Subject: RE: Dad ordered to pull down treehouse
From: sian, west wales
Date: 21 Nov 08 - 07:46 AM

Oh! Well! PEMBROKESHIRE National Park. All is explained. The same planners who have allowed the Bluestone development despite considerable public opposition. Also the county where the planners demanded that a small eco-community take down its buildings - but that battle was eventually won by the community.

sian

Subject: RE: Dad ordered to pull down treehouse
From: GUEST,Betsy at Work
Date: 21 Nov 08 - 07:53 AM

Planners are a bit like British Football referees.
Everyone loves to hate them, questions their decisions to the point of ridicule and derision , but the only way we can trust the 22 people on the pitch to behave themselves is to have a referee.
I would have assumend that if these two people are clever enough to make a living from being a Sculptor and a Painter,they would also have known that planning regulations in National Parks are fairly stringent.
Gedpipes will also know this about such regulations fronm his time living in the N.Yorks National Park.
There is a fine balance with something like this.
I would think the tree house looks fairly ok with many of us - ecological pleasing etc., it certainly looks good to me , but what happens if that same " many of us " discover someone has erected some hideous construction which has a blighting effect on our, and otherpeoples lives ?.
I am always left with a bad taste in my mouth over such cases, and there have been a few locally recently. In each case I believe ( correctly or not ) the "builder" has built,and knowingly stuck his middle finger up at the Planning Authority,instead of consulting with the Authority prior to building to see what is possible and what is not.
There is no doubt that Planners (like referees) make some bad and incorrect decisions from time to time , but in general ,they try to ensure that our neighbourhoods don't turn into eyesores, shanty towns and shit holes, because of others bad taste and "fuck-you" attitude.

Betsy at work

Subject: RE: Dad ordered to pull down treehouse
From: semi-submersible
Date: 21 Nov 08 - 08:06 AM

There's the recent Canadian case of a "pirate ship" treehouse which was visible but attractive.

The architect dad had asked for a building permit from the city beforehand. He was refused: they don't issue building permits for treehouses, they told him. A treehouse doesn't need one.

So he built the ship-shaped treehouse, complete with rows of cannons along its cedar-shake sides, for his two little boys to enjoy. City officials who came by while he was building it, didn't say boo. But the next-door neighbour's window faced right onto it, so eventually she complained to the city, which then did a formal investigation and ordered the dad to demolish it.

The family went to court, and lost. The two year old pirate ship tree house was torn down this September and auctioned off for charity.

Pity he didn't screen it better from the nearest neighbour. Sigh.

Subject: RE: Dad ordered to pull down treehouse
From: greg stephens
Date: 21 Nov 08 - 08:46 AM

There was green hillside I used to look at, over a whole sector of horizon between two groups of trees, when we built this house eight years ago.Now that view is totally obscured by a wide expanse of giant white sheds, distribution centres for our transport based economies. All, of course, with planning permission. The buildings are not only vast, they are hideous. And, to my way of thinking, they are not economically necessary: far from it, their economic and environmental effect on the country(and world) are disastrous. So don't expect any sympathy for me for those hard-pressed planners, doing their thankless task of preventing the world from being over-runby the terrifying spread of treehouses.

Subject: RE: Dad ordered to pull down treehouse
From: Anne Lister
Date: 21 Nov 08 - 09:19 AM

The daft thing about this story is that the tree house builder had also built a lean-to, which he was perfectly prepared to pull down if required when he realised he should have had planning permission for it. But the planners were happy with his lean-to - and then they saw the tree house.
He's at the bottom of a 600 metre lane with no neighbours to worry about or to offend, and in any case the photo of the structure shows it's not offensive. How many tree houses are likely to be constructed in the area, I wonder?
Just plain daft.

Subject: RE: Dad ordered to pull down treehouse
From: katlaughing
Date: 21 Nov 08 - 10:34 AM

Well, if there are too many of them, we might revert back to our ape-like state and then where would we be? They are only helping us to evolve by banning them, right?

Daft idjits!

Subject: RE: Dad ordered to pull down treehouse
From: PoppaGator
Date: 21 Nov 08 - 12:55 PM

I'm puzzled about whether the treehouse was built on private or public property, i.e., in a yard/garden owned by the family or within the boundaries of a National Park. The article says that the family in question lives "in" a National Park; I'm not sure how this works and what it maens, and I think that in the US, the distinction between private and public land might be more clearly defined.

I know that in the US, plots of land immediately adjacent to parkland are valuable bits of real esstate, since you can build a great house with a wonderful view that will very probably never be sullied by anyone else's building ~ but you can't buy land IN the park (or at least I don't think so).

(The palatial home seen in the final 10-15 minutes of the classic Alfred Hitchcok film "North by Northwest" is a good example of this kind of upscale development, situated right up against the boundary of federal land at Mount Rushmore.)

I have a lot more sympathy for a homeowner whose plans for building on his property are being stymied by some kind of community covenant or zoning regulation than for someone trying to build on public land to be preserved in a "wild" or "wilderness" state. The case in Pembroikeshire seems to be ambiguous on this score.

Subject: RE: Dad ordered to pull down treehouse
From: Little Hawk
Date: 21 Nov 08 - 01:19 PM

That is about the nicest looking, most imaginative treehouse I've ever seen. They should let it be. It does no harm, and it even looks good.

Subject: RE: Dad ordered to pull down treehouse
From: gnomad
Date: 21 Nov 08 - 02:54 PM

In Britain we have much less space than in the States, and hardly any true wilderness. As a result areas which are now National Parks have been so designated with residents and buildings already in place. The inhabitants may own the property, sure, but they can only make changes which are acceptable to the authorities. The National Parks authorities thus act as an additional layer of planning control, plus other duties too, of course.

All change within NPs is not forbidden, but it is quite tightly regulated. New building is the most tightly controlled, but not impossible, hence this guy's application for retrospective permission once it was established that he needed it.

Living in a NP means restricting your freedom to do certain things, but it means that your neighbours are similarly restricted. This means that the surroundings you will have undoubtedly paid a premium price for are at least protected to some extent.

Subject: RE: Dad ordered to pull down treehouse
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 21 Nov 08 - 04:02 PM

Commonsense thing would have been to grant retrospective planning permission, just this once. Since it looks pretty good, and would have likely been given approval if he'd gone through the required procedures, it seems most likely that he's telling the truth about not realising he needed planning approval

Along with that they needed to ensure that the case got maximum publicity, including a bit where they warned anybody thinking of doing anything similar that now they've no excuse for saying they didn't know they would need planning approval, so if they chance their arm they'll get it chopped off, so to speak.

Subject: RE: Dad ordered to pull down treehouse
From: Charley Noble
Date: 22 Nov 08 - 01:26 PM

We had a similar case in Portland, Maine, a few years back. Eventually the Planning Board issued a permit in response to widespread community support. The neighbor was quite pissed off. Here's a song that I composed to commemorate the struggle:

By Charlie Ipcar © 1992
Tune: after theme song from Beverly Hillbillies'

Treehouse

C---------------G
Ben built a house, high up in a tree,
--------------------C
Ben built a house for everyone to see;
-----------------------F
It had cedar shingles and a plywood floor,
G------------------------G7---- C
Three small windows and a big front door.


Ben built a house for all his friends to share,
They'd play all day, high up in the air;
The birds and squirrels were very surprised to see
Three little kids hanging out in a tree.

But the next door neighbor shook his head and swore,
"The City's gonna hear about this big eyesore!"
Inspector Rowe came by, and a letter soon was sent;
You know, Ben hadn't filed for a building permit.

"You can't build a treehouse without central heat,
A bathroom, a kitchen, or a bedroom suite;
The codes are quite specific," said Inspector Rowe;
"A building is a building, and this one's got to go!"

Now Ben and his family don't know what to do,
Some friends urge compliance, some urge them to sue;
When you're only seven it's so hard to understand,
Why a treehouse in everyone's front yard isn't part of the City's master plan!

The last time I checked the treehouse had been taken down, but it had survived for at least 5 years. No doubt, Ben is now a registered architect.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Dad ordered to pull down treehouse
From: Ebbie
Date: 22 Nov 08 - 02:06 PM

The Columbia River Gorge is a spectacular canyon thousands of feet deep that serves as a border between Oregon and Washington State. Over the years Oregon has been circumspect about what building and development they allow while Washington had not. Which translated to the fact that Washingtonians had a beautifully pristine view across the river while Oregonians saw sawmills, hotels and a hodge podge of houses, huts and mansions.

Since then, Washington has instituted new regulations that specified that any new building has to be set back far enough that it is not visible from the roads or it must blend into existing natural surroundings.

I remember some years back when a couple built their 'dream house', a large edifice that was clearly within the disallowed area, having built outside their permits. The state told them they had to pull it down. The couple went to court to save their place.

I don't know the outcome.

Subject: RE: Dad ordered to pull down treehouse
From: Benjamin
Date: 22 Nov 08 - 02:07 PM

I like that song Charlie!

Subject: RE: Dad ordered to pull down treehouse
From: Charley Noble
Date: 22 Nov 08 - 04:47 PM

Thanks, Ben!

I did send a copy to the treehouse builders.

Charley Noble