Cleaning up riverfront property

[Richard]

Do you need to check with TVA?

Here (Knoxville area) TVA owns all the water & beaches up to (forget) the 500' contour line (elevation I think).

You might have the beach on your property (as we do) however, TVA owns it and if you do something, they might take offense to it. I just recently talked to my TVA guy about two standing dead trees. Fortunately for me, the were not near the water but literally about 18" from the road so I think they'd fall under the county right of way.

None the less.... since they were road hazards, I pushed them over. There is a standing DYING cedar tree and I called to ask about taking that one out (it is also next to the road) he got very defensive... saying they don't want trees taken down, even dead trees unless they're at risk of hitting a structure.....and as it happens....cedar trees will stand dead for a longgggggggggggggggggggg time so though he didn't say "no", I could read it in his voice. He asked me to send him a couple pictures. (haven't done it yet, this is a current situation)

The Cedar tree has some green sprigs on one part at the top so it's not 100% dead, maybe 85% so I'm not expecting them to give me permission.

Now... if instead it's on the county right of way.... ?????

 

[buckeyefarmer]

Unless your name is Snyder, and you own the Redskins. He cut trees to get a view of the potomac and barely got his hands slapped.

 

[EddieWalker]

I'm not familiar with TN laws, so the advice that people are giving should be investigated to make sure it applies to what you want to do. Back when I lived in CA, I had a friend who cleaned up some of his land and built a pond where all the overgrowth and trees used to be. The list of government agencies that went after him for this is too long to list, but since he was a former City Planner for Oakland, and ran for office numerous times, he knew how to deal with them. He just said that the pond had been there when he bought the land decades ago, but had been damaged and then overgrown over the years. He was just restoring the land to what it was like when he bought it, not changing or modifying anything. And yes, he won that battle and then sued for his expenses and won that too.

If there is any question or concern about the government coming after you if you do anything on your land, I would just focus on cleaning it up and restoring it to what it was when you bought it. Probably do a lot of mowing and bush hogging. Tons of pruning and whatever else you can to improve the health of the trees. And if there are some busy body neighbors, maybe only work on it when they are at work, during the week, and clean up everything as you go so there isn't a mess for anybody to see and become offended by. Gotta play the game.