Bermgate 2013

Forums › Off topic › Bermgate 2013

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5

6434 posts

Uber Geek

#906923 3-Oct-2013 09:52

Dingbatt: Why do I have to pay rates for an inner city rail loop I'll never use, or support an orchestra I never listen to, provide houses for people I don't know, subsidize public transport that doesn't service my part of the city or pay to make the front of your dwelling look nice when it isn't done in my part of the 'Super city'. We also have to pay for inorganic rubbish collection and have never had free swimming pools for kids that other parts of the metropolis have enjoyed.
It's part of being in one city. So maybe you need to suck it up, or buy some roundup and get rid of the problem once and for all.

Paying for something you don't use is totally different from being expected to maintain property that isn't yours.

Imagine if the council said

"We find that mowing the grass on [large council owned park] is far too expensive, so now the ratepayers are going to have to do it themselves. They will need to work out some sort of roster. Mowing their berms sets the precedent for people to chip in and maintain council owned property.

Furthermore, since people are maintaining their berms, they are now required to maintain the footpaths outside their house. If there are any cracks or dips that are trip hazards, the person living in the house next to that footpath now has to fix it at their own cost. After all, the footpath is closer to their house so if the berm falls under their responsibility, then logically the footpath does too.

Anybody who complains about these two simple things simply needs to suck it up"

NonprayingMantis

6434 posts

Uber Geek

#906925 3-Oct-2013 09:55

JimmyH: They can't make you mow it. Regardless of what they say, you don't have any legal obligation to maintain their property free of charge, at your expense, for them.

BUT

The key question is whether you should do it anyway. If they aren't going to mow it then you can stand on your principles if you like. You will get unsightly long grass outside your house, likely a build up of accumulating rubbish, and potentially eventually rodents as well. Plus, if your neighbours are mowing theirs and you aren't, you will likely have annoyed neighbours as well.

Personally, I would just mow it.

not if my neighbour mows it :P

I wonder what happens in the areas where people are living in poverty, have no lawn (and hence no lawn mower). Are they still expected to buy the tools necessary to mow this piece of lawn they don't even own?

Dingbatt

6754 posts

Uber Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#906926 3-Oct-2013 09:58

There is no footpath outside my house.

“We’ve arranged a society based on science and technology, in which nobody understands anything about science technology. Carl Sagan 1996

BlueShift

1692 posts

Uber Geek

#906970 3-Oct-2013 11:31

NonprayingMantis:
Dingbatt: Why do I have to pay rates for an inner city rail loop I'll never use, or support an orchestra I never listen to, provide houses for people I don't know, subsidize public transport that doesn't service my part of the city or pay to make the front of your dwelling look nice when it isn't done in my part of the 'Super city'. We also have to pay for inorganic rubbish collection and have never had free swimming pools for kids that other parts of the metropolis have enjoyed.
It's part of being in one city. So maybe you need to suck it up, or buy some roundup and get rid of the problem once and for all.

Paying for something you don't use is totally different from being expected to maintain property that isn't yours.

Imagine if the council said

"We find that mowing the grass on [large council owned park] is far too expensive, so now the ratepayers are going to have to do it themselves. They will need to work out some sort of roster. Mowing their berms sets the precedent for people to chip in and maintain council owned property.

Furthermore, since people are maintaining their berms, they are now required to maintain the footpaths outside their house. If there are any cracks or dips that are trip hazards, the person living in the house next to that footpath now has to fix it at their own cost. After all, the footpath is closer to their house so if the berm falls under their responsibility, then logically the footpath does too.

Anybody who complains about these two simple things simply needs to suck it up"

Not to mention fixing potholes in the road, maintaining the sewers and handing out the parking tickets. Your slippery-slope argument doesn't really hold up, considering the rest of the city and country has been mowing their own berms since forever and none of them have had footpath maintenance or drainlaying added to their responsibilities.

NonprayingMantis

6434 posts

Uber Geek

#907008 3-Oct-2013 12:26

BlueShift:
NonprayingMantis:
Dingbatt: Why do I have to pay rates for an inner city rail loop I'll never use, or support an orchestra I never listen to, provide houses for people I don't know, subsidize public transport that doesn't service my part of the city or pay to make the front of your dwelling look nice when it isn't done in my part of the 'Super city'. We also have to pay for inorganic rubbish collection and have never had free swimming pools for kids that other parts of the metropolis have enjoyed.
It's part of being in one city. So maybe you need to suck it up, or buy some roundup and get rid of the problem once and for all.

Paying for something you don't use is totally different from being expected to maintain property that isn't yours.

Imagine if the council said

"We find that mowing the grass on [large council owned park] is far too expensive, so now the ratepayers are going to have to do it themselves. They will need to work out some sort of roster. Mowing their berms sets the precedent for people to chip in and maintain council owned property.

Furthermore, since people are maintaining their berms, they are now required to maintain the footpaths outside their house. If there are any cracks or dips that are trip hazards, the person living in the house next to that footpath now has to fix it at their own cost. After all, the footpath is closer to their house so if the berm falls under their responsibility, then logically the footpath does too.

Anybody who complains about these two simple things simply needs to suck it up"

Not to mention fixing potholes in the road, maintaining the sewers and handing out the parking tickets. Your slippery-slope argument doesn't really hold up, considering the rest of the city and country has been mowing their own berms since forever and none of them have had footpath maintenance or drainlaying added to their responsibilities.

my point was really that the line must be drawn somewhere, and having that line be "you maintain what you own" seems the most reasonable. The exception for berms seems pretty odd and kinda pointless.

kiwitrc

4123 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#907063 3-Oct-2013 13:30

NonprayingMantis:

my point was really that the line must be drawn somewhere, and having that line be "you maintain what you own" seems the most reasonable. The exception for berms seems pretty odd and kinda pointless.

You may think you own your property, but stop paying your rates and see long it takes before it is sold from underneath you :)

gjm

808 posts

Ultimate Geek

#907148 3-Oct-2013 14:30

I mow my own berm quite happily, sometimes I mow my neighbors if I have time. I find mowing lawns quite therapeutic for some reason and really enjoy the look of a freshly mown lawn. Maybe I should quit IT and take up mowing lawns for a living?

Do surveys for Beer money (referral link) - Octopus Group

Link for buying beer (not affiliated, just like beer) - Good George

Equinox IT

Cloud spending continues to surge globally, but most organisations haven’t made the changes necessary to maximise the value and cost-efficiency benefits of their cloud investments. Download the whitepaper From Overspend to Advantage now.

kiwitrc

4123 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#907149 3-Oct-2013 14:32

gjm: I mow my own berm quite happily, sometimes I mow my neighbors if I have time. I find mowing lawns quite therapeutic for some reason and really enjoy the look of a freshly mown lawn. Maybe I should quit IT and take up mowing lawns for a living?

And I thought it was just me who looked forward to mowing my lawns.

gjm

808 posts

Ultimate Geek

#907150 3-Oct-2013 14:34

lol....weirdo ;)

Do surveys for Beer money (referral link) - Octopus Group

Link for buying beer (not affiliated, just like beer) - Good George

BlueShift

1692 posts

Uber Geek

#907168 3-Oct-2013 14:44

gjm: I mow my own berm quite happily, sometimes I mow my neighbors if I have time. I find mowing lawns quite therapeutic for some reason and really enjoy the look of a freshly mown lawn. Maybe I should quit IT and take up mowing lawns for a living?

From the number of people moaning at how much extra they'll have to pay their lawnmower man to mow the berms, it must a lucrative profession.

NonprayingMantis

6434 posts

Uber Geek

#907702 4-Oct-2013 09:54

I'm also pretty certain it is a hell of a lot more efficient for the council to pay people to mow all the berms than it would be for 500k households to individually manage their own (whether doing it themselves or paying a company to do it)

nicnzl

172 posts

Master Geek

#907707 4-Oct-2013 09:58

NonprayingMantis: I'm also pretty certain it is a hell of a lot more efficient for the council to pay people to mow all the berms than it would be for 500k households to individually manage their own (whether doing it themselves or paying a company to do it)

May as well get the council to mow everyone's private lawns as well then

kiwitrc

4123 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#907710 4-Oct-2013 10:00

"Council" and " Efficient" in the same sentence??

Geektastic

17942 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#907731 4-Oct-2013 10:29

NonprayingMantis: so apparently I will soon have to mow my own berm.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11133160

This is interesting to me. I have never done it before as I was under the impression that the council owned the land and was therefore responsible for the maintenance. I don't mow the lawns on one tree hill or the domain.
This issue of ownership was reinforced recently when I got a parking ticket for parking my car up on the berm.

So why should I mow the berm outside my house if I do not own the land? And where does my berm end and my neighbours begin? what about the person who lives on the rear section? should we take it in turns?

what about berms outside apartment blocks? should the body corproate pay for it? or the residents?

If I owner the land I could understand, but I definitely don't or I wouldn't have been fined.

I wouldn't mind too much about doing this, but my rates have gone up 10% this year, and will go up again 10% again next year (and the year after that), so the penny pinching by the council to avoid doing maintanence on land it owns seems bit rich.

What do you guys think?

Whoever owns it mows it.

On a side issue, what is this very odd NZ word "domain"?!

Where on earth did that come from? Given that a significant number of early settlers were British, I find it very odd because that word would never be used in English English to describe what is in fact a 'public park'! There isn't a Hyde Domain in London, for example, or a Green Domain tube station!

It's one of those NZ words I find it very hard to say because they sound so 'wrong' to me (like Manchester - it's linen, and "find a park" which should be "find a parking space").

NonprayingMantis

6434 posts

Uber Geek

#907736 4-Oct-2013 10:35

nicnzl:
NonprayingMantis: I'm also pretty certain it is a hell of a lot more efficient for the council to pay people to mow all the berms than it would be for 500k households to individually manage their own (whether doing it themselves or paying a company to do it)

May as well get the council to mow everyone's private lawns as well then

not the same, since that would require the council person to come onto your private land, which they would need permission for and would only be convenient for different people at different times, thus removing the efficiency gains. Plus access to the lawns might be difficult with people who have gates that are locked etc

With the berms, they can get one guy on a big ride-on mower to do an entire street in one go. No need to ask permission from any landowner and very easy access. Much more efficient than 100 houses each individually paying a bunch of different lawnmower guys to mow the little section in front of their house all at different times. (or doing it themselves)

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5