People inside and outside city government have been talking about a tree ordinance to protect mature trees from needless destruction for close to twenty years. We may finally be getting to the point of actually having such an ordinance. At the informal Common Council meeting on Monday, Councilmember Margaret Morris (First Ward), who chairs the Legal Committee, reported that a draft of the tree ordinance would be ready for consideration by the full Council at its regular monthly meeting on Tuesday, December 19. Sadly, it will come too late for some trees in the 300 block of State Street.
In recent days, two large fir trees were cut down behind 340 State Street, a house owned by Hudson Collective Realty, a Galvan LLC.
Today Gossips received reports that the equipment used to take down the two trees at 340 State Street has been moved to the yard behind 336 State Street, another house owned by Hudson Collective Realty. It is likely this tree will be coming down next.
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| 225 Union Street |
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| 123 Union Street |
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| 9 Union Street |
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| 356 Union Street |
A draft of the proposed tree ordinance, which may not be the final one, can be found here.
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Oh goodness, what a darned shame - those trees didn't look sick. Good for Margaret Morris - hope they get the resolution through fast.
ReplyDeleteAlso, a big THANK YOU to Hilary Hillman, member of Hudson's Conservation Advisory Council for drafting the Tree Ordinance legislation and helping to see it through the Legal Committee.
ReplyDeleteIt's important that the Tree Ordinance passes. If you take a tree down, the ordinance will require you to replace the tree with tree(s) of equal caliper/diameter.
Hilary also organized the street tree planting this fall and received a grant for more tree plantings this spring along Harry Howard.
Britt Zuckerman, former CAC member, through Partners for Climate Action, received grant money for about two dozen street trees, planted in the spring.
Hudson's Conservation Advisory Council has position openings. If you are a city resident and would like to be a part, please email me at richvolo@cityofhudson.org. We meet once/month, first Tuesday for one hour.
Thank you!
Rich Volo
Chair, Hudson Conservation Advisory Council
It's terrible to sacrifice healthy trees for the sake of convenience. A tree is a living being. If it is not a threat to anyone or anything it should be allowed to live. Yeah, I am a tree hugger and I believe it has a soul of sorts
ReplyDeleteThe curious case of Galvan and trees:
ReplyDeleteSeven years or so ago, Galvan planted some trees along S. 3rd Street, by the Salvation Army, and along N. 7th Street on the block where they are now building an apartment house. In both places, there were no residential properties along the street, so they could do so without consulting anybody. (By city code, owners of property adjacent to a street tree are liable for any problems caused by that tree, hence the advisability of owners opting in.) That first year, Galvan planted extremely puny trees of mostly unsuitable varieties for urban locations, in tiny tree pits about 24 inches square and too close to one another. All or most of those trees were dead within a year or two.
The following summer, after conversations with the Conservation Advisory Council, Galvan agreed to fund a new round of street tree planting. This time, the CAC devised a list of appropriate tree varieties, and an application for property owners who wanted a tree out front, detailing their responsibilities and on which they could specify their choice of tree variety. The CAC verified appropriate spots in front of each property, and defined adequately large planting spots, where the DPW then cut the sidewalks to create planting pits. Not all of those trees survived, either, but many did. (There are many reasons why a young street tree will not make it, including lack of watering in the first season, kids thoughtlessly tearing off thin branches, and cars crashing into them.) Many of the trees that year were planted along Front Street in between the mature ash trees which are infested and being killed by the emerald ash borer. The hope there was that when the ash trees eventually would need to be removed, there would be a new generation of trees coming along.
I don't remember for sure but I don't think this annual exercise in guided arboreal philanthropy on Galvan's part was repeated. In the years since, it is notable that where Galvan has replaced sidewalks in front of properties they own, they have not installed any street trees. (Check out the apartment buildings at the corner of 5th and Union, and on Union near West Court Street.) As has been demonstrated repeatedly in their desultory stop-and-go approach to rehabbing buildings, Galvan's enthusiasms tend to be short-lived. Sigh.
National Grid often removes trees in the city to safeguard their poles and lines -- the many trees they cut down along the Dugway s few years ago is one ugly example! Will NG be required to replace trees/replant elsewhere? Our own DPW sometimes fells perfectly good trees -- last year's expansion of the Washington Street dirt lot is a perfect example, where trees were knocked over or just buried at the base to die. Also, a few weeks ago they cut down two huge, mature trees to make way for the extension of the sewer pipe between the lot and Oakdale Park, and it looks like more trees will come down as work there continues with huge earth moving machinery. Will DPW be required to play by the rules that the city's tree ordinance dictates? Don't count on it!
ReplyDeleteI agree there should be a tree law and establishment of a Tree Board. We should encourage more trees, the greening of the city, and stewardship of native trees on public property. However, you lost me when it comes to controlling private property and interfering with the decisions of homeowners to maintain their property as they feel fit.
ReplyDeleteI would hope that the Council take into serious consideration the scope of this law as purposed. It seems to be setting up a bureaucracy as encompassing as the HPC, except that it will cover the entire city. This is another situation where it's folly to think that you can legislate an issue without thinking about whether the city has the wherewithal to execute said law, as well as not thinking through the unintended consequences. Much like the new sidewalk law. A problem that could have easily been remedied by enforcing derelict sidewalk owners to fix their own sidewalks per the existing law, instead the city has now been challenged to take responsibility of a complex fee system, planning and construction. It's been how many months since that law has been passed and the treasurer and assessor are no where near able to figure out how to levy the fee, whereby they'll need to go through every property in the city and figure out how to bill based on location, frontage length, pre-existing sidewalks or lack thereof, as well as accepting exemptions based on all the carve-outs for volunteer firefighters and whatever else they put in there to make the 5th ward happy. The end result: no homeowner will fix their sidewalks in the meantime since the city took responsibility, no improvements will take place per the DOJ's wishes, and the city just became a little more expensive to live in.
This new tree law could be a similar debacle. First, it may include anything with a 3 inch diameter - there are shrubs that are bigger. Second, it will increase unaffordabilty in the city as middle and working class homeowners/landlords (there are still some left) will face a bureaucratic burden to maintain or improve their properties. Requiring additional site plans are expensive and not everyone can pay a landscape architect, or a certified arborist, of which under this law must also register with the city, thus reducing available tree services, also increasing costs. This will put a damper on development and housing affordability. It will also cause deferred maintenance on problematic trees since many homeowners will not want to deal with the process and just cross their fingers that the next storm won't be the one that kills them or destroys their home, or their neighbors.
Wanting to preserve mature trees is a noble and worthy cause. These are living beings, but the sad truth is, like every other living being on this earth, they don't live forever. Many of the larger trees in this city are at the end of their lifespan. I suspect many species, like silver maples and such, grew from unplanned weeds and become the type of trees that can be a disaster in an urban environment where houses are feet apart. Everyone loves a tree not on their property. They have to worry about their home getting crushed or their sewer line getting blocked. Nobody wants to take a large tree down. It's not like someone in Hudson can take a chainsaw and just fell it to the ground. It takes professionals with cranes and it's getting very expensive. Trust that the economic factor is already a deterrent to casual removal.
Instead of burdening private citizens, and putting more responsibly on an overworked Code Enforcement Office, a Tree Board could encourage the continued planting of new trees along public rights of way, parks and public buildings. Provide guidance to DPW and utility companies on pruning. We could use it to educate homeowners on the proper stewardship of trees, what species to plant, and (for the love of God) how to identify and get rid of nasty invasive species like the Tree of Heaven, which could be the unofficial tree of Hudson.
Cutting down trees is the opposite of civilized.
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