In other action, the council voted 4-0 to adopt an ordinance that would limit the area on which residents cut down trees on their properties. The move is meant to preserve neighborhoods with certain characteristics and traits.##M:[more]##
The vote on July 7 followed a public hearing, and a presentation last month from township landscape architect Dan Dobromilsky. Dobromilsky, who explained that currently, a single-family residence is exempt from having to file for a tree-clearing permit to remove trees from the property. This is because the area at the time the last ordinance was updated was mostly farmland, and there hasn’t been huge problems with residents cutting down trees on their properties. In wooded areas, some lots received conservation restrictions, but the exemption did not apply to every property. However, there are about three to four dozen lots that do not have conservation restrictions or a requirement for tree-clearing permits, even though the area is heavily wooded. The ordinance takes steps to address this.
“If you’re in a zone, and the minimum lot size is one acre, and you’re in a house on a two-acre lot, for the one acre around the house, you’re exempt from a tree-clearing permit,” he explained. “But the other acre beyond the area around the house, you’re not. You can clear-cut one acre, but you can’t clear-cut two.”
Councilman George Borek brought the matter to attention after one of the residents in his neighborhood cut all the trees down on the property, drastically changing its appearance from the rest of the neighborhood.
Resident Linda Potter, who lives on North Mill Road on the west side of Grovers Mill Pond, said she felt the ordinance would be extremely valuable. She said she lives directly across the pond from a lot that was clear cut and planted with grass from the house on Cranbury Neck Road to the pond. The homeowners built an earth berm on top of which they parked a speedboat, a trailer/storage unit, and an excavator which is parked there long term, she said. She said the move destroyed trees and plants that protected the pond from erosion, and was detrimental to wildlife it.
“It has taken away our beautiful pond that is forested from one end to the other,” she said. “It has destroyed that same beauty for everyone who lives in that community.”
A property owner who wants to cut trees down but cannot do so because it would violate the ordinance can speak to Dobromilsky and go through a process with the Shade Tree Commission, which helped draft the ordinance. If the commission disproves of the move, property owners can purseu the matter through the courts.
