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HomeMy WebLinkAbout20180203 ANW Holdings Subdivision Modification Denny corr 11-4-20 To: Mark Torpey, Chair, Planning Board From: Tom Denny, Chair, Open Space Advisory Committee Date: November 2, 2020 CC: Susan Barden,Tina Carton, members of the OSAC Thank you for reaching out for an Open Space Advisory Committee (OSAC) opinion in this case. The OSAC discussed this project at our October 28 meeting and the committee reviewed a draft of this letter circulated by email. Our recent work on the Natural Resource Inventory has sensitized and informed us about some of these issues. No doubt, much of what we offer in this letter will already have been on the radar of the Planning Board, but we offer our perspectives in the hope that they may help you a bit to clarify yours. Please let us know if you have any questions or need anything further. The Open Space Advisory Committee strongly supports the efforts by the Planning Board to preserve mature trees, both individually and through the use of no-cut zones. We are sorry to hear you report that so many developers, builders, and/or property owners have "blatantly violated the PB's conditions" regarding these. We offer three thoughts about the value of trees and tree preservation in particular. (1) The general value of tree canopy—economic, environmental, and aesthetic—is well-established and is summarized at length in the City's 2013 Urban & Community Forest Master Plan and even more thoroughly in chapter 8 of the City's draft Natural Resource Inventory (NRI). We encourage the Planning Board to consult these documents regularly in your work. (2) The preservation of mature trees provides far greater and far more immediate benefits than a remove-and-replant approach to construction. Many of the benefits that trees provide are directly proportional to the size of the canopy. It will be decades, perhaps close to a century, before any newly planted trees can perform all the work for us that a mature, large-canopy tree currently does. An informal survey of large oaks, referenced and mapped in the NRI, suggests that developers in Saratoga often made efforts in the recent past to preserve mature trees relatively close to houses they were building. Until the 1970s or 1980s, developers and builders often preserved oaks, probably 150-200 years old, in close proximity to neighborhood houses in Geyser Crest, on Grand Ave (west of West Ave), on Woodlawn and State, on upper Central Ave., on North Circular, and many other places. The removal of most if not all mature trees from a building lot would seem to be a relatively recent historical phenomenon. (3) Finally, additional benefits come from preserving a mature large-canopy tree, even for the few decades of its remaining life. To preserve the tree, the site plan must necessarily incorporate an area of open space and, probably, impervious surfaces. These are two important natural resources in an urban neighborhood that minimize flooding and reduce the polluted runoff that compromises the city's streams and lakes. The preserved tree literally serves as a space holder that prevents infill and preserves the option for future homeowners to plant the next generation of large-canopy trees when the preserved tree inevitably dies. Mr.Torpey's questions: The OSAC feels that it would not be appropriate for us to get too directly involved in the details of this particular case, as found in the documents and correspondence. We don't feel it is our role to assess to what extent Mr. Witt's actions were in violation of the PB NOD, nor to assess whether he excavated closer to the tree than had been agreed or approved in the meetings with the City arborist, nor any other details of the case. We will limit our comments to the broader issues raised by your questions about the Birch-Hyde project and to some comments on the landscaping plans presented. 1) How can we reduce the chances of this happening again? There have been many projects over the past several years that have blatantly violated the PB's conditions regarding tree preservation and no cut buffer restrictions. This is a complex question about City management and enforcement that goes well beyond the scope of the OSAC's activities. We will just share some general observations, speaking as fellow volunteers on Mayor-appointed panels. • Does City Hall know this is a recurring problem? Have you met and/or communicated with the Mayor, the City attorney, enforcement, the building office, the City engineer, and the planning office? Try to get a process moving that will get all of these offices working to find a solution that will achieve stronger enforcement. • Good legislation is the essential foundation. Get the City to tighten and clarify its legislation regarding responsibilities, mitigation, penalties, etc. in the area of tree preservation. Relevant legislation includes both the Unified Development Ordinance (UDO) and the City's tree ordinance (Chap. 220 of the code). As you are aware, this is timely. November 25 marks the end of public comment on the UDO. Between now and then,we would encourage the PB to review the relevant UDO provisions and develop a list of revisions the PB requests. Then communicate your proposed revisions and work to have them included in the final UDO. The Tree Ordinance is decades out of date. Revising it was a priority Action Strategy in the 2013 UCFMP. The City arborist is interested in seeing it updated. Once the UDO is completed and the City catches its breath, the PB could support moving forward with this. • Communication, information flow, and the power of IT. Holding developers accountable for tree preservation requires that several City offices (see above) must be aware of the PB restriction. One obvious means to improve this would be for the City to invest in a GIS-based system of record- keeping. This could be stand-alone or could tie into the County's relatively robust system. This would have a "layer" in the parcel maps that would highlight all restrictions, easements, and a range of other similar information. Such a system would align with Commissioner Madigan's Smart City initiative, as it would make for more efficient work in many offices. The OSAC, including our staff person, Tina Carton, strongly support increased GIS capability in City Hall. Both the NRI and the in- progress revision of the Open Space Plan will have GIS-based components provided by the consultants, yet it remains unclear how these IT assets will be utilized in an integrated fashion by the City. Additionally, if this system were available to the public, the transparency from that might help citizens to remain vigilant about enforcement of no-cut zones, etc. • Here are a few other ideas, more at the nuts and bolts level, of how the PB might enforce better compliance with these tree preservation restrictions. • To ensure clarity regarding the Tree Protection Zone, insist that the fence surrounding it be constructed before PB approval of the developer's subdivision plans. This is not only to protect against damage from excavation, but also from soil compaction from heavy equipment and heavy storage in the root zone. In a 3-lot subdivision, this needs to be erected before any work is approved on any of the lots. (The importance of erecting this at the start of the project is clear in this particular case. The tree damage and removal are occurring on the last parcel developed in the subdivision, which limits the amount of mitigation the PB can now require on the other two parcels.) • Require that a Tree Preservation Plan sign be posted conspicuously along the site frontage, similar to the public posting of a Building Permit. This would explain the required Tree Protection Zone to the public. The sign should have contact information for citizens to get more information about the tree issues on the site. • Until the City invests in a GIS-based record-keeping system, work out mechanisms within City Hall to ensure that whoever will supervise the excavation of the footprint of construction will have the needed information about the restriction and the Tree Protection Zone. • Require the developer to post a performance guarantee for the tree preservation. • Is it possible to issue stop-work orders when violations occur? Delays from such orders would get the developers to pay more attention to your restrictions. Build the stop-work order option into the procedures with the appropriate offices in the City. 2) What is an appropriate penalty and how is it determined? We weren't clear whether you were speaking only of the appropriate penalty for a violation of the PB restriction or also were inquiring about what is appropriate mitigation for removal of the tree as well? We will address both briefly. Some of this information stems from a web search, that turned up tree codes from various municipalities as well as media reporting on specific tree removal violations. Ultimately, the most appropriate mitigation measures and penalties will be those found in the ordinances and codes of Saratoga Springs, as enacted by Council. Again, we encourage the PB to review the UDO draft and communicate any proposed language for it to the planning office, the Mayor, and others in City Hall. • MITIGATION for approved removal of a mature tree • If you want to dig into this further, you might find the ordinance of Concord, Mass. to provide some food for thought regarding different approaches to mitigation. It has interesting diagrams for when to preserve and when to mitigate, plus a detailed explanation of four courses of action: preserve; re-plant; re-plant and pay; pay. Many ordinances from many states can be accessed here. • The preferred mitigation, if possible, is for the developer to replant rather than simply pay into a fund. Paying into a fund outsources the time-consuming work of locating sites to the city arborist or other entity. The best mitigation of all is replanting on the site being developed, because it preserves the neighborhood character and preserves open space in the parcel. • Mitigation plantings should be over and above whatever landscaping would already have been required for the project. • Mitigation formulas are often based on replanting some%-age of the lost DBH removed. For example, in Concord, the caliper of total replantings must equal 50%of the DBH of the removed tree(s). By Concord standards, a 55-inch silver maple would require 27.5 inches of caliper in the mitigation plantings. Some require 100% replacement. • Mitigation ordinances often state explicitly that the replacement trees, at maturity, must be comparable in size and canopy to the lost trees. In other words, small ornamental trees such as dogwoods are not a suitable mitigation for a large-canopy shade tree. Columnar trees are particularly inappropriate for mitigation purposes. They will never provide the same sorts of ecosystem services, or energy benefits, or aesthetic impact as a large-growing shade tree. An old arborist saying captures this: "it's canopy that counts, not sticks". • When mitigation is handled by payment to a fund,the charges vary widely but can be significant. Concord, Mass. charges$375 per inch of diameter while Muttonville, NY (Nassau County) charges$250 per inch of circumference. For a 55-inch silver maple such as that on Birch St.,these would amount to $20,600 and $43,000 respectively. Minnesota charges triple the appraised value of the tree. • PENALTY for violation (destruction or removal of tree marked for preservation) • Again, these vary widely. Woodside, Cal. charges $5,000 for the first tree, $7,500 for the second, and $10,000 for each subsequent violation. 3) If the penalty is to replant trees,should they be located on public or private property? If the PB feels that not enough mitigation or penalty planting can take place on the three parcels, it is probably preferable to plant on private property. Planting in the City ROW will throw work at the City arborist,to find and approve sites. (The budget cuts in the wake of Covid make this particularly problematic.) Also, between conflicts with overhead utility wires and narrow tree lawns,there are limited planting sites available on any given street. Private sites might be preferable. Once you determine the number of trees Mr. Witt is responsible for planting, one option that would help the West Side neighborhood would be to require him to send out a letter to residents or owners within a specified radius of the site. He would offer, on a first come, first served basis, a shade tree, planted at his expense, in the yard of these residents. This could address some of the feelings expressed in letters to the PB that the neighborhood was losing shade trees. Mr. Witt would pay to purchase and install the trees. Landscaping plan: a passing comment We won't get into the specifics of Mr. Witt's landscaping plans other than to mention that we understand that the PB works from the City's approved list of species and we are confident that you will not approve the planting of a Japanese lilac on Hyde St. Please be in touch if we can help in any way. Keep up the good work.