Letter: Bamboo Should Be Banned, Disputes Solved Case-By-Case

This letter to the editor by reader Albert Tobin was received June 29 concerning the proposed amendment to town code regarding bamboo maintenance. The thoughts expressed are of the writer and do not represent those of Patch.

The notion of making an ordinance that would allow the putting a 10 ft. limit on the planting of bamboo makes no sense at all since eventually the bamboo roots may grow to exceed that value if one just waits long enough. There is no way to know what sort of a limit is reasonable since each bamboo species is different. Thus, if a planter were to plant the bamboo, say, 11 ft. from the property line, he would be within the law but it would not necessarily solve the problem since the bamboo will grow at its own rate.

The only ordinance that would seem to make any sense is for the Town Council to ban all future bamboo plantings – regardless of the bamboo type. 

However it seems rather unfair to financially penalize homeowners by grandfathering the ordinance to all prior homeowners, who, in good faith, planted their bamboo many years ago when there was no ordinance against bamboo planting, and who had no idea that it might cause an underground invasion of a neighbor’s property at the time of planting.  This is particularly true of retired residents who are living on a fixed income and who probably may not have the savings to excavate their property to satisfy such a ban. The Town of Smithtown should not be taking sides in neighborhood disputes of this kind when there is no clear cut case of right or wrong!

That would be like saying to a homeowner that he should have anticipated 10 or 20 years ago that the Town of Smithown was planning to ban bamboo 10 or 20 years later and he should have planned for that by not planting the bamboo in the first place! That makes absolutely no sense at all and is grossly unfair to the property owner who has the bamboo on his side. It would be equivalent to changing the zoning laws and then telling a homeowner that he is no longer able to reside in his home because the town has changed the zoning from residential to commercial.

It seems to me that the only reasonable solution to the current conundrum between property owners is to have the Town work with both property owners try to work out a fair solution on a case-by-case basis since no two situations are identical.

In most cases I think that both property owners should try to share the costs and work together to try to rectify the problem in good faith. If, for some reason the party’s can’t get together to resolve the issue, then maybe the local courts could then be brought in to decide what is a fair on a case-by-case basis. In this manner Smithtown could honestly say that it tried to offer assistance to both parties and that the town was fair to both sides.

 –Albert Tobin