That's Just Wrong: Trees

WSVN--If Juan Carlos' life was a sitcom, it'd be my three sons.

Even though this single father can't always keep up with his boys, he's always on the move.

From the basketball court in the driveway to the makeshift football field in the yard.

Juan Carlos: "We play football another games and this is dangerous for the kids to be around."

Dangerous because of falling limbs from a row of australian pine trees.

Juan Carlos: "This just fell yesterday."

And these aren't just ordinary trees.

If you've ever seen an australian pine, you know they're really, really tall.

Juan Carlos: "There were in excess, in my yard of 30-trees that I have to remove myself."

For Juan Carlos, that's thirty trees too many, especially when they're not even on his property.

Juan Carlos: "These are all marked by the city to take down. You can see right here. They marked it over a year ago."

That's right, the trees belong to the city of Davie.

But since it marked the territory, Wilma hit hard, and crews had to spend months cleaning up the debris.

Juan Carlos: "The entire neighborhood was blocked because of these trees falling down in the middle of the road."

Only problem - they refused to remove the trees next to Juan Carlos' yard.

Juan Carlos: "He has come here and spoken to me and says no way. I'm not going to remove these trees period. I don't have enough money for it. And that's it."

But if Juan Carlos can't get to the root of the problem, he knows who can.

And that's when he called to say that's just wrong.

Now when we did our homework at 7 News, we learned Australian pines are dangerous because they have shallow roots that make them easy to topple.

However, when we talked to representatives from the town of Davie the told us as far as they're concerned, any tree is a good tree.

Braulio Rosa: "What we are trying to do right now is rebuild our canopy. So we don't want to remove trees just for the sake of removing trees."

In fact, they wouldn't even extend an olive branch after we convinced them to look at the trees next to Juan Carlos' house.

Braulio Rosa: "It has to be something that would pose an immanent threat an immanent danger to the public for us to remove those trees.'

Still, for Juan Carlos, the imminent danger is obvious.

He believes any storm could topple those trees and hurt somebody he loves.

To keep his sons safe, he's selling his home and moving as far from the pine trees as possible.

PLEASE SEND STORY IDEAS TO:

thatsjustwrong@wsvn.com
DADE: 305-598-HELP
BROWARD: 954-796-HELP