Ultimate Story Of Homeowner Vs City

A couple built their driveway where the city wanted to put a street light, but the new concrete didn’t stop the city anyway.

By nowproducerdave on May 4, 2018
(Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images)

Here’s a good old fashioned story of homeowner vs. city, and neither are backing down. It happened in Australia, and it’s about a driveway and a lamp post. Long story short, the city dropped a lamp in the middle of their driveway, and the couple want it moved, but the city says “no.” Read below for more.

Have you ever gotten into a battle with the city over something like this? Say you wanted to build a fence, or plant a tree or something like that, but the city ordinances got in the way? This couple wanted to expand their driveway. Rather than going through the proper channels to get it approved, they just went ahead and did it to their satisfaction. A nice looking driveway was the result of that, to match their impressive looking home.

Then the city came along and wanted to put a new lamp post in the ground to light up the intersection (there’s a cross-street across the road from their driveway). Well, their location for where the lamp post needed to go was now covered by the driveway. Rather than just moving the lamp post over 10 feet so it would be in the yard, they just cut a hole through the driveway and dropped the post in. So now, nearly smack-dab in the middle of the couple’s driveway is a shiny new city-installed lamp post.

The city’s response is that the couple need to remove their driveway, rather than the city remove the lamp. The city says moving the lamp would “compromise lighting to the intersecting street.” Also, the light doesn’t even function anyway (for the past year), and because of the driveway the city can’t gain access to the underground cables they need to work on. So it’s a lot of finger-pointing, but truthfully, the couple should have had the driveway approved ahead of time. Check out some more on the story over here.

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