Protect the trees
As a resident involved in all four attempts to create a useful tree preservation code for more than a decade, I commend your editorial in support of tree preservation.
In every past attempt, the primary request from residents was preservation of established trees and groves of established trees. Excellent data and justification was repeatedly presented for that need. Our secondary request was that a mitigation fund be used to purchase established trees to prevent their destruction.
Each time, city staffs and councils listened to the complaints (and threats) of developers and created obtuse codes resulting in insignificant fees for destruction of established trees and requiring plantings of new trees where they are more convenient. The mitigation fund went unspent. The urban foresters were unable to interpret or enforce the code.
The result was continuing loss of canopy, acres of bulldozed trees (sometimes in protected zones) and parking lots with young trees poked into tiny plots that die during the summer.
City staff recommends yet one more expensive, time consuming study. The council wants to plant new trees with mitigation funds; residents have given up in despair; and the last of the trees are falling.
Peggy B. La Point,
Denton
