A New Jersey homeowner is accused of having 32 mature trees on his neighbor's property illegally chopped down in order to enhance his view of New York City. The fine for such an action is $1,000 per tree, so he may have calculated that it's worth $32,000 to get a better view.
However, there is also a provision in the law requiring the replacing of like trees "of the same size." And it turns out that because of the size of the felled trees, and the inaccessibility of the property, doing so is estimated to cost $1.5 million.
Twitter user @SamAsIAm says he's a friend of the municipal arborist on the case, and he tells the story in a Twitter thread, adding that the tree-hater is also being assessed an additional $400,000.
