Decades-old hedge target of suspected ‘vexatious’ complainer
Retired Scarborough couple Leon and Rosemary Murray says they’re “confused and hurt,” after being told their hedge, which was there when they bought the house in 1952, doesn’t meet city rules and must be moved or cut down.

TheStar.ca
July 19, 2014
Amy Dempsey

For more than five decades, a hedge has lined the yard around the Scarborough bungalow owned by Leon and Rosemary Murray.

The hedge was there when the Murrays bought the house on Daventry Rd. in 1962. Their children and grandchildren grew up playing within its boundaries. Neighbours have passed it every day, many commenting on its fine appearance. In recent years, the Murrays have won two local awards for landscaping that “illustrates a love of gardening and pride in our community.”

Then one day in May, a bylaw officer knocked on the front door and handed Leon Murray a violation notice.

Someone — a lone individual, his or her identity kept secret by confidentiality rules — had complained the hedge was too close to the sidewalk. The Murrays, retirees in their mid-70s, would have to move it or cut it down.

“We were baffled,” says the husband.

“When we bought the house, the hedge was there. Nothing has changed in 52 years,” says the wife. “We’re just confused and hurt.”

Glenn De Baeremaeker, councillor for Scarborough Centre, believes the Murrays were the target of a vexatious complainant who has been filing multiple grievances about hedges, fences and driveways in the neighbourhood — the second such crusader that has gone on a complaint-lodging blitz in Scarborough in the past year.

Frustrated Mississauga councillors passed a new bylaw last month giving city staff and bureaucrats the power to cut off frivolous and vexatious complainers in certain circumstances, but in Toronto the rules remain firm.

De Baeremaeker tried to tackle the issue a year ago with a motion that sought to develop a policy to deal with vexatious complainants and waive the appeal fees for the people they target.

“I was trying to put a bit of common sense into the formula,” De Baeremaeker says. “To say, if one person is registering 12 or 20 complaints or always after the same person, you know it’s a personal vendetta or a personal dispute. And people shouldn’t use the city of Toronto as a weapon to harass their neighbour.”

“I was hoping that where there are obvious cases of harassment or nuisance or something that’s obviously frivolous, that our inspectors would say no, you can’t give me a list of 25 properties up and down your street, just because you’re in a bad mood.”

His efforts have been largely unsuccessful. A city report last year made vague recommendations and appeared to suggest bylaw officers could use discretion in certain cases, but in practice De Baeremaeker says they must investigate all grievances, no matter the motivation.

That could soon change.

Mark Sraga, who joined the city of Toronto’s municipal licensing and standards division as director of investigations in October, says after speaking with bylaw officers on the front lines of neighbour feuds about the challenges posed by repeat complainants, the department is now working on a policy change.
The new rules, expected to come into effect this fall, would ban anonymous complaints and give bylaw officers the power to dismiss some cases without investigating.

“What we want to do is have the ability to say thank you for bringing this to our attention, however, because it has no real immediate impact on you and there’s no health or safety issue we will not be investigating it,” Sraga says.

But what exactly constitutes a health and safety concern? It is not as straightforward as it sounds.
The Murrays’ leafy hedge wraps around their corner lot in a neat rectangle that separates their yard from the sidewalk. It is half a metre too close to the pedestrian pathway and a few inches too tall, according to city bylaws outlined on a May 2 notice of violation delivered to their door.

One comment in particular surprised them. The violation notice described their hedge as “not maintained.”

Though the copy of the report is for their own records, they couldn’t resist quietly objecting to the remark: “WRONG,” Rosemary wrote.

“She was very upset,” says Leon. “Because that’s not true. The hedge has always been well-maintained. That’s why we won those gardening awards.”

Leon says a bylaw officer told him numerous complaints had been lodged about properties in the neighbourhood. De Baeremaeker estimates that about 20 have been filed in the past several months — all by the same person, the councillor believes.

Even if the new discretionary rules about vexatious complaints had been in place, the Murrays’ hedge likely would have still been investigated under the “health and safety” umbrella because it was deemed to be obstructing the view of the sidewalk.

“Everything is a health and safety complaint,” De Baeremaeker says. “These tricksters who abuse the system they know the rules. So as soon as they hear it has to be a health and safety violation ... they turn it into one.”

The Murrays have already removed a small section of the hedge that obstructed the view of the sidewalk from their driveway. They had been aware of the sightline issue since they moved into the house and say they have always exercised caution, usually backing into the driveway to avoid the blind spot. In 52 years, there wasn’t a single incident, but they agreed to remove that corner of the hedge anyway.

“We are never going to go against safety,” says Rosemary. “It just isn’t in our making.”

As for the rest of the hedge, the Murrays intend to ask the city for an encroachment agreement. They say it could cost them up to $2,000 to file an appeal, present their case to Scarborough Community Council and — if they are permitted to keep the hedge — pay the City of Toronto for 10 years’ worth of insurance. It is not a small sum for the retirees, but they have decided they will see it through.

City of Toronto bylaw investigations are largely complaint-based and all it takes is one person to fire off an email or make a quick 311 call. A lone crusader in the Brimorton Dr. area last year lodged nearly 100 complaints. Sraga, the city investigations director, says one Toronto resident submits 50 to 60 every month.Some citizens lodge multiple reports in retaliation for one that has been filed against them, with the goal of punishing their neighbours or burdening enforcement with extra work.Others believe they are making their neighbourhood a better place by ensuring rules are followed. Sraga kindly calls them “overzealous community advocates.”

The Murrays believe they know the identity of the neighbour who complained about their hedge and other properties in the neighbourhood, but they haven’t approached the person and don’t plan on it.

“Because we don’t know for sure,” says Rosemary.

The Murrays could retaliate by filing their own complaints, but it’s not in their nature to be confrontational or vindictive. Leon, who cleans up garbage from nearby streets “to set a good example” and clears snow from local driveways in the winter, recently won a Good Neighbour award, on top of the honours the Murrays have received for gardening and their annual Christmas lights display.

Leon believes the city should charge an administrative fee for lodging a complaint to deter frivolous and vexatious reports — just like the one he has to pay to appeal.

They struggle to understand why after 52 years someone all of a sudden took issue with the hedge. “There are probably 30 homes from here to Cedarbrae (Mall) that are in violation of this same thing,” Leon says.

It’s a vexing problem: enforcement officers cannot exercise discretion in whether to look into a complaint or not, but they can choose to ignore minor violations in plain sight. They could drive past a dozen homes with obvious code violations while investigating one complaint, and then take action only on the unlucky neighbour who has been reported.

De Baeremaeker doesn’t fault the bylaw officers. “If they stopped every time they saw a violation, they would never make it back to the office,” he says.

But he believes the policy is hypocritical. “Our staff are being used as weapons of harassment by one neighbour who doesn’t like another neighbour.”