September 20, 2007
Tree Removal Machine
Lee Nichols has a nice article in this week's Chronicle about destruction of the urban forest resulting from infill development. Mature trees are a key factor that makes older neighborhoods more pleasant than suburban sprawl. Unfortunately, large trees are often taken down when an old house is replaced with a larger new house. Austin's Tree and Natural Area Preservation Ordinance requires a permit for removal of a tree with a 19-inch diameter. Removing (or killing) such a tree without a permit can result in a fine up to $2,000. Of course, $2,000 isn't much of a deterrent when building a million dollar house, but the Chronicle article doesn't come up with examples of builders intentionally violating the law. All the builders they discuss all appear to have removed trees with the blessing of the city. If you know of a tree that has been or may be illegally removed or damaged, call the City Arborist at 974-1876 or email michael.embesi[at]ci.austin.tx.us.
Tree advocates have come up with some suggestions for tweaking the ordinance. We have a few additions:
1. The city should compile a list of protected trees. No need to spend a lot of money doing it - Austin has plenty of volunteer tree-huggers. Put a form on the city website allowing people to submit the location of protected trees and a photo showing the tree. That way we would at least know if someone has taken down a protected tree.
2. Change the penalty. In addition to the fine, put violators on a block-list so that they can't get any more building permits for one year if they take down a protected tree.
3. Tell the city arborist to stop authorizing builders to remove protected trees.
Part of the problem is that builders are limited by setback restrictions so that they can only build within a compact footprint on any lot. Most builders (and homebuyers) want to keep big trees on their lot, but they want a big house more. Enforcing these suburban-style setback regulations is resulting in the loss of our urban forest. If we eliminated the setback rules, but strictly enforced the tree preservation rules, we could allow urban infill and maintain the urban forest. Trees are more important to our neighborhoods than making sure every house is 25 feet from the front lot line.
Image from splityarn on Flickr.
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Thank you for alerting us to this rule, I wasn't aware of it previously. It's particularly helpful to me since i have at least 7 trees on my property in the 16-18 inch diameter range. I'll now have them cut down immediately before they reach 19 inches and the city usurps my property rights.
More bogus regulations.
My next-door neighbor (the one with the family of 5 I often used as my additional McMansion example) has switched courses and is now planning on staying and expanding by the 500 square feet he has left to use - and because of McMansion, he's doing so by building back rather than up (his comment was that a 500 square foot second floor would basically leave him with about 300 extra square feet once you consider the wasted stairwell space). Guess what that's going to do to trees and impervious cover?
Trees are more important to our neighborhoods than making sure every house is 25 feet from the front lot line.
Wrong. Trees can always be replaced, but once you allow developers to flout setback requirements, the floodgates are irrevocably opened.
Setbacks are there for a reason. They permit more sunlight, they're esthetically pleasing, they allow for construction of sidewalks & infrastructure on rights-of-way, and those front yards are great places to plant your precious trees.
Take a walk through West Campus, a former residential neighborhood with front yards & single-family homes that has been turned into Austin's version of the Upper West Side -- row after row of identical six-floor tenements -- and you'll see what I mean.
Yeah, kenneth, let's talk about West Campus. The thing I notice is that it's beginning to look a hell of a lot nicer than it did when those former single-family homes were being rented by landlords who didn't give a shit about upkeep to students who didn't give a shit about anything.
Wow. UT has nihilists now? Cool.
The downtown trees are already cataloged ftp://coageoid01.ci.austin.tx.us/GIS-Data/Regional/coa_gis.html
Kenneth, hundred year old oaks take, like, a hundred years to replace.
25 foot setbacks, combined with 20-40 foot wide streets and 15-30 foot high buildings are generally considered esthetically displeasing (see page 11):
http://www.epa.gov/piedpage/pdf/ptfd_primer.pdf
A one-to-one street width to building height ratio is considered ideal. I like the new West Campus (and the Upper West Side). Both are much more pedestrian friendly than most of Austin.
Also, I don't see how building on the front of the lot, or the side or the back instead of the middle allows more sunlight. In any case, I'm not big fan of sunlight hitting my house - one of the big problems with cutting down trees (as mentioned in the Chronicle Article) is that is means more sunlight on houses, leading to higher AC costs.
It is interesting that people in the more central neighborhoods are cutting down their trees. The developers seem to get it. If you look at most of the new construction within the Austin city limits, preserving mature trees is paramount. The developers appear to generally try to get 5 to 10 mature trees per lot. Our new house is being built in a new neighborhood that I'm pretty sure is using the minimum setbacks allowed, and still has tons of room for trees.
That said, I think we should fine the hell out of people who cut down trees. Plus we should make developers replace every tree (over about 10 feet or so) they take out somewhere else in town.
And West Campus looks far nicer than it used to. If you think it used to look better, you need to put the beer bong down.
Well, I guess theres a problem already, I called the number listed above to complain about the large tree taken down in the house next to me, I have the pictures, and there wasn't a permit. "This number isn't taking messages, mailbox full".
Anyone got an email address ??
michael.embesi@ci.austin.tx.us ? Maybe?
I got his name on this page: http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/trees/