Glenross resident Colin Carey said he had spent the past six years living in the shadow of his neighbour’s towering hedge, which had almost reached 6m and cast a shadow over his backyard and deck.
His guttering was also consistently blocked with leaves from tall silver birch and sycamore trees overhanging his property, he said.
Those trees blew foliage and small spiky seeds all over his property.
Mr Carey said a lack of rules on hedges had left him feeling powerless and he was calling on the Dunedin City Council to treat hedges as fences and limit how tall they were allowed to grow.
"I can cut back overhanging branches, but I have to pay for that — why do I have to pay for their trees?"
Mr Carey said he would like the council to adopt a model similar to the Nelson City Council, where hedges in urban areas were classed as fencing and governed as such.
"You cannot stick a 6m fence between you and your neighbours; why should you be allowed to do that with a hedge?"
Communication between Mr Carey and his neighbour devolved to the point where the situation went to the Disputes Tribunal, in which Mr Carey asked for $957.24 plus GST for gutter-cleaning invoices dating back as far as 2015.
When fellow neighbours found out about the hearing, six residents, whose properties also border the same neighbour, wrote letters of support for Mr Carey.
The Disputes Tribunal last month ruled in Mr Carey’s favour but declined awarding the full amount.
Mr Carey’s neighbour will instead have to pay him $376.10.
Mr Carey believed this was not a resolution to the dispute.
"At the end of the day, the trees are still there and will be blowing leaves into my gutters — if I want anything done about that I’ll have to go this route again."
When contacted, the owner of the trees said they were equally unhappy with the tribunal’s decision and it set a bad precedent.
"We live in an area with a tree-lined street owned by the DCC.
"Where does this leave them? Are they going to have to pay to get everyone’s gutters cleaned?"
They declined to comment further.
A Dunedin City Council spokesman said vegetation on private property was for property owners to manage.
"We encourage everyone to be good neighbours and prune their vegetation where needed, to avoid issues."
They also said they managed fence height for amenity and visibility, but considered boundary hedges to increase biodiversity, and it had been decided not to manage hedges through the district plan.
"We haven’t considered a bylaw that would limit hedge heights, but we did consider whether hedges should be living fences.
"It is more efficient for any issues to be managed privately rather than through district plan controls.
"Monitoring and enforcing the height of all boundary hedges would not be cost-effective for the DCC."
