Updated 7/17/07
BACKGROUND
At one time or another, nearly everyone has felt the pain of seeing a favorite tree cut down. Sometimes this is necessary, as when a tree has become diseased or been improperly cared for; sometimes it is not, as when all trees on a lot are clearcut regardless of neighborhood impact.
The City of Manhattan Beach has enacted certain ordinances geared toward preserving the beauty of its neighborhoods by limiting the removal of larger trees (the "canopy") located toward the front of individual lots. The merits and efficacy of the specific ordinances enacted are debatable. In fact we (VZ&W Development) believe they may ultimately have the opposite effect of that intended (buy us a cup of coffee and ask us why!).
Nonetheless, we also believe that the goals of preserving and enhancing neighborhood beauty and property values are very good. Despite being evil heartless developers, we live here too, we genuinely love and appreciate beautiful trees, and we favor intelligently written tree preservation ordinances that meaningfully balance private property rights for residents and developers alike with neighborhood beauty and character.
THE SITUATION
On the property line between the lots we (the developers) purchased for this project stood a large non-indigenous aleppo pine tree, tall and, though unkempt, clearly satisfying the requirements of the tree preservation ordinance. Within one inch of this tree leaned another, quite unviable, its trunk pointing severely toward the street at an angle in excess of 45 degrees from the vertical (see photo above).
Oddly, the staff of the City of Manhattan Beach chose to view these trees identically under its tree preservation ordinance, noticing not that one of the trees was little more than a strange looking hazard sticking out into the street. This struck us as silly - - certainly an indication that something is wrong with tree regulation in Manhattan Beach. We were later instructed that the City would have regulated this tree even if it had been dead. Now there's regulatory zeal for you!
THE COMPLICATION
But the real problem was that these two trees sat about six feet above grade in an enormous, unsightly stucco and concrete "planter" that required removal for architectural, aesthetic, safety, and code compliance purposes. Note, then, that at this point we were bound by City codes both to remove the trees AND to keep them! Moreover, relocating the viable tree, were that required, would be a monumentally expensive undertaking because of its size. So we note another problem with the ordinance: It ignores situations of financial infeasibility.
PROPOSED SOLUTION: LET'S ADD MORE TREES!
As a solution, we proposed to the City staff that the viable pine tree, the hazardous pine tree, and the ugly planter all be removed at our expense, and in exchange we offered to replace them with ANY number of ANY type of ANY size trees, perhaps some attractive hardwoods, that the City might like to see planted on the two lots.
SOLUTION VETOED: NO, LET'S NOT!
Oops, not good enough! A City's Planning Department staffer assigned to tree regulation summarily nixed our offer, saying: "No. We don't want more trees. We want THAT tree." He directed us to conform to the "letter of the tree ordinance." We'd say there's a problem with an ordinance whose importance supercedes that of the canopy it is designed to enhance and enlarge.
He then proceeded to require us to jump through a number of time consuming, non-tree preserving hoops for a very costly 45 days before releasing his personal chokehold on our building permit, but there were two more requirements: We needed to secure a permit to keep the tall tree, and we also needed to provide a written guarantee under 5-digit penalty that the tree wouldn't die. An ordinance that makes us promise something that we simply can't physically guarantee seems a little overreaching to us.
PINE TREE RETAINED BUT WELL-INTENTIONED ORDINANCE BACKFIRES
Fast forward. "Al" the Aleppo Pine was skillfully moved, preserved, and beautified at a total cost of $42,000 (including financing costs during the City staffer's delays), which incidentally would have bought some nice trees, by the very helpful Ann Barklow, our expert arborist. After that level of expenditure (plus the purchase of a much smaller tree to replace the unviable "leaner"), we simply can't afford more trees of any meaningful size, so Al is destined to stand basically alone.
Thus, at the direct result of a simplistic though well-intentioned ordinance, the Tree Section now has less large beautiful trees than would have stood under the arguably generous solution we had proposed. But we do have an attractive $42,000 pine tree. C'est la vie d'un arbre!
POSTSCRIPT
Situations such as this, combining crude statutes with authoritarian enforcement, destroy the credibility of local government and alienate those who are governed from the process and its goals. Could we please work on that ordinance, and take pertinent facts and circumstances into account in the course of its administration?
Please click on the image below for Ann's description of Al's amazing adventure!
