In a stunning move, a New Jersey homeowner cut down 32 of his neighbor’s trees along a hillside in Kinnelon, New Jersey, to get better Manhattan skyline views — and he could now be forced to pay more than $1.5 million in fines and replacement fees, according to officials and the furious neighbor.
Munitions company CEO Grant Haber is said to have violated local law when he had 32 mature trees removed—some as old as 150 years old–belonging to his neighbor.
Haber has been issued a fine over his actions after he hired men to cut down trees on the property of Samih Shinway.
“It breaks my heart. It angers me. These trees take a very long time to grow,” said Samih Shinway, who said a quarter acre of his oaks, birches and maples were slashed.
Haber, was hit with an initial fine of $32,000 — $1,000 per axed tree — after clearing part of the leafy, 7-acre property in March, borough forester John Linson told northjersey.com Tuesday.
But if Haber thought that the selfish “landscaping” was going to cost him only a measly $32,000, he was in for a big surprise.
A town ordinance also requires anyone who illegally removes a tree in Kinnelon to replace it with “another of like or superior species.”
Restoring the toppled trees will require building a roadway to the site and watering the new ones for two years — a massive undertaking estimated to cost $1.5 million, Shinway said.
Haber will also have to factor in the price of adding soil, removing invasive species and clean-up, Shinway said.
Along with the hit to his pocketbook, Haber faces at least 32 counts of illegal tree removal and one trespassing charge, Kinnelon prosecutor Kim Kassar told The Post.
The feud began in early March, when Shinway said he caught workers in the act of cutting down the beloved trees on his estate, which sits roughly 35 miles west of New York City.
“I heard multiple chainsaws in the distance,”Shinway said — adding that he hopped on a four-wheeler and drove over to investigate.
He found a graveyard of chainsaw-sliced conifers, ranging in age from 20 to 150 years old.
“I saw a landscape truck, a dump truck-style truck, with a big, large shredder, and four landscape contractors on my property,” he said. “They said…‘The owner wanted a view of the city and the mountain range.’”
The tree cutters had climbed a fence clearly marking his property line, which sits at the bottom of Haber’s more elevated compound, he said. This adds trespassing to the other charges being brought against the invasive neighbor.
Shinway, a forest lover who helps out with the state’s Woodland Management Program, quickly called police, who told the workers to “cease and desist,” he said.
“I really care about [the woods]. That’s why I got so mad,” he said — insisting more than 32 trees were actually chopped on his land.
“To cut 40 trees and leave them to waste for no reason, that’s insane,” he fumed. “I just want everything replaced.”
The clash went viral earlier this week when a friend of Linson, Sam Glickman, tweeted about the cost of replacing the trees.
“[The] guy probably thought he was going to just pay a $32K fine. But…there’s a provision requiring the replanting of like trees “of the same size,” Glickman wrote in the post, which had raked in more than 3.8 million views by Wednesday.
Two contractors hired by Haber to do the tree chopping may also be fined an additional $400,000, he said.
Glickman’s tweet drew so many irate people to a court hearing against Haber via Zoom Tuesday evening that it reached its 100-person capacity, and the town prosecutor was initially unable to log on.
The Kinnelon municipal court hearing was ultimately postponed when defense attorney Matthew Meuller said he needed more time to review discovery in the case. It was rescheduled for July 18.
