Great find!
Quote:
Mark Oberhardt
September 25, 2007 12:00am
A PROPERTY developer and a tree lopper were yesterday fined a total of $45,000 for destroying a protected fig tree at one of Brisbane's prime real estate addresses.
Magistrate John Parker said it should be a warning to all developers that they had to follow council processes and could not treat fines as part of the "cost of doing business".
In the Magistrate's Court in Brisbane yesterday, property development company Home Design Australia Pty Ltd, a director of the company Anthony Masinello, and tree lopper Nizam Ahmed Deen pleaded guilty to breaching natural assets laws late last year.
The court was told HDA bought a property at 28-30 Queens Rd, in the inner-northern suburb of Hamilton, and on the site was a 25m fig tree with a canopy of 35m and diameter of 5.4m.
The tree had been the subject of a vegetation protection order since 1997.
HDA had plans to slide the house to another part of the property and build a tennis court, but the fig tree had to be shifted.
Mr Parker fined HDA a total of $30,000, Mr Masinello $10,000 and Mr Deen $5000 and ordered costs of $1500 against HDA and Mr Masinello but not Mr Deen. He said fig trees were significant to Brisbane and "iconic in the community".
"I accept some people don't like them. They can be dangerous and a pain in the neck, but the council and government has legislated to protect them," he said.
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LOL, so Nizam Ahmed Deen copped $5k fine.
