Opinion ID: 5126740
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Initial Dispute

Text: Armatas is a lawyer who owns and resides on property in Plain Township, Ohio. In September 2016, Armatas met with Thomas Ferrara, Plain Township’s Zoning Director, to discuss a row of evergreen trees located on a neighbor’s property adjacent to Armatas’s property. Armatas believed that his neighbor’s 20-foot-tall evergreen trees violated Section 602.10 of the Plain Township Zoning Resolution (the “Hedge Ordinance”). At the time, the Hedge Ordinance limited No. 21-3190, Armatas v. Haws “hedges” to eight feet in height in Plain Township’s Residential Districts. Armatas thought that his neighbor’s evergreen trees qualified as “hedges” within the meaning of the Hedge Ordinance and complained to Ferrara that the trees should be removed. After reviewing the Hedge Ordinance, Ferrara told Armatas that he was “not going to do anything about this” because he did not think that evergreen trees qualified as “hedges,” so the Hedge Ordinance did not apply to the evergreen trees. Ferrara also told Armatas that there is no avenue for appeal through Plain Township. Armatas then called Scott Haws, a Plain Township Trustee, and left a voicemail explaining that the evergreen trees should be removed according to Armatas’s interpretation of the Hedge Ordinance. The next day, Haws returned Armatas’s phone call and left a voicemail explaining that he had visited the properties, examined the evergreen trees, and concluded that “they do not meet the criteria of a bush or a hedge or a wall or a fence” within the meaning of the Hedge Ordinance. Haws also told Armatas that there was no avenue for appeal through Plain Township.