Sarah Bond

The court says that the way Canton is doing its tree permits is unconstitutional, which means that the township needs to fix it.

And Chance's clients, in the end, they don't have to pay the township anything.

This is one of the most high-profile wins in a property rights case in a while.

And Chance is excited because permit laws are one of the main ways that towns and cities restrict people's property rights.

He thinks that this decision will make it easier to go after cities that charge too much for permits, maybe stop them from making too many unnecessary demands.

Anne-Marie says the township board debated whether they should appeal this case all the way to the Supreme Court.

But they decided that they had already spent too much money on these lawsuits.

So they went back to the drawing board.

And last June, they came up with a new tree law.

What happened in Canton, Michigan, has set off some alarm bells among towns and urban planners who are especially worried about the bigger picture of environmental permits and who should bear the cost of, you know, protecting and preserving the environment.

But a case like this doesn't change the world overnight.

And in the meantime, there are a lot of cities like Portland, Oregon.

where even regular homeowners might not be allowed to cut a tree down.

At first, Sarah Bond tries to convince herself that the giant tree leaning over her house is not as scary as it seems.

Senior husband Joel would spend hours walking around the backyard, squinting at it, trying to picture what would happen if this tree fell.

So for almost three years, Sarah and Joel and their family try their best to settle in.

They get a dog and two beautiful Siamese cats.

But the tree is always looming.

It is keeping them up at night.

Sarah is looking out the backyard window when all of a sudden what she has been fearing starts to happen.