By CAMERON LUCADOU-WELLS
A DANDENONG North resident’s solar panels have been put in the shade after supposed fence-high shrubs planted in a next-door park have soared into 10-metre tall gum trees.
Slava Grigoriou says several trees were planted in the Currajong Street park near her fenceline by Greater Dandenong Council six years ago to deter children kicking soccer balls into her fence and yard.
She had been expecting the ‘short shrubs’ to grow no higher than her two-metre fence.
However they have thrived and now tower above her house and block sunlight to her kitchen window and six pre-existing roof-solar panels.
Her panels now generated little power, she said.
When she asked an installer to put in more solar panels, she was told they wouldn’t work under the immense treeshade.
Ms Grigoriou claims when she complained to a council worker tending to the landscaped native gardens in the park, his response was “if you’re not happy, you can sell the house”.
“I don’t want to sell my house. That really hurt me,” Ms Grigoriou, a 20-year resident at that address, said.
“I said if your mother was living here would you be saying that?”
Ms Grigoriou had also unsuccessfully requested for a dead parkland gum that teeters towards her property to be removed.
She said the council had refused because the trunk was native habitat.
Councillor Maria Sampey said she had requested the council to trim or remove the trees on Ms Grigoriou’s behalf for the past four years, to no avail.
Last week the council’s engineering services director Bruce Rendall said senior council staff would contact the residents to “discuss a solution with them”.
