Developers

[DDM]

Has anyone ever had any luck in dealing with subdivision Developers? I was called
out last week by a homeowner in a nearby new development. The home owner needed a few trees removed for a swimming pool installation.I'm driving thru the development Named The oaks
And notice several quite large DEad white oaks thru the whole development 2-3' From the roads and houses encased in concrete in the middle of the road ect. The homeowner i was visiting had a rather large dead Oak beside her driveway and told me when we finished looking at the ones the living sweetgums she needed removed that the developer needed me to give him a few estimates to remove a "few" dead trees here and there namely the one at her driveway
there were 3 more smaller ones at the driveway that were dying she was responsible for removing. We met the developer and he drove me thru and pointed out 2 more trees that were falling apart rather quickly that if i didnt have a bucket theres no way id attempt to climb. I asked him about the other trees and he told me he'd worry about them in 3 to 4 months.
There must have been 30 Severe Hazard trees in the Subdivision. Whats
Wrong with these guys? I removed the
trees at the home owners house today she told me to leave the dead tree alone until the developer called me because she was afraid that if i removed any of the limbs he wouldnt pay to have the rest of the tree removed until it fell. It wasnt really a risk to anyone or thing where it was so i left it But i was Real uncomfortable working around it to remove the live trees. I was afraid i was going to accidentally bump it. And that probably all it would take. The developer informed me that they wanted to Keep as many Large oaks
as possible. I asked him then why the Hell did you cut Road beds 2' From the Bases of the trees? he informed me that it was standard practice I told him he might as well have Dozed them all Because he would probably loose 80+ % of them.And Now there starting on Phase2 Same Tree scheme.

 

[Toddppm]

It's all to do with the city or county rules , so the developers don't bulldoze everything , they tell them they have to save so much canopy cover, but I think they don't impose strict enough fines or withold their bonds or however that stuff works. I'd like to find the inside scoop on all of this stuff and see the real reason they let these guys get away with this crap. They get their bond released as long as the tree is still standing, somebodies pockets are getting lined. There is so much building going on here it's incredible but you rarely see any real effort to protect and save any existing trees, but when you do it's pretty cool. It's not that hard to do I don't think , but they want the quick and dirty job, just get it done. I've bid a few jobs for a guy that does bond release work for developers, never got a job from it though, goes to the lowest bidder I guess, just used me to make his buddies prices look good probably.

 

[DDM]

This guy Lives in the development And has a 1000.00 per tree fine if any of the home owners cut a tree without prior permission. Isnt he liable if the dead trees on His right of way fall on someone
or something?I believe he owns all the property.

 

[Toddppm]

You would think huh! It would be up to the insurance company to sue , he would just file bankruptcy and start up again under a new corp. name.

 

[John Paul Sanborn]

They been doing it for years, and the guys that thaught 'em did it that way.

They do not see the decline because it takes 7-10 years to show up.

We ask them to change their whole way of doing buisness

There are 2 types of soil science, structural and agricultura. They just are not compatible.

 

[trees4life]

d

I deal with tree protection by-laws and developers on a daily basis. Most builders/developers don't realize that cutting roots and/or compacting soil will have any affect on the tree. I've seen job sites where they have wrapped snow fence around the trunk of the tree in order to protect it.

Some municipalities have, or are in the process of developing by-laws to protect signficiant trees (determined by size of tree(s) or # of trees).

It's tough since you have to get senior management, and then the politicians to buy into it. Especially if you attach 'affordable housing' as a concept for a subdivision. Although their idea of affordable & mine are very different. Houses for $250G's + won't get any homeless people off the streets.

It's a long, frustrating process, but we are making headway.

 

[Jay Banks]

Guys,
Several things are at issue here. Has any one taken the Building With Trees workshop?

The points are: (and I'm speaking of Virginia)

1.There are limited tree protection "laws" and limited enabling legislation for us to protect trees.

2.Developers can be taught, but they have to be willing to listen. And they listen real well when you take away something, like their next occupancy permit.

3.Monitoring. All the tree protection in the world is useless if it doesn't stay in place for the duration of the project.

4.Resources. There are many more of them than me. Just by shear volume I can't watch each of 30+ projects.

 

[Jumper]

Then there is the idiot company here, Richcraft Homes, that recently ordered destroyed over six acres of virgin forest (pine and birch, typical of the Upper Ottawa Valley) that was being preserved as a nature area/park in Kanata. Someone from the city finally stopped them before the whole stand was levelled: it was not even their land!!!!!: : Apparently they are going to have to replace all the destroyed trees, plus pay punative damages. Iworked for this company through an agency for four days, a real bunch of jerks. As a result the city is contemplating new laws requiring permits before ANY tree is removed, even those on private property. More bureaucracy no one needs, and the owner will get stuck with the tab.

 

[John Paul Sanborn]

So did this company give a reason for their land clearing?

 

[Jumper]

Tree Clearance

They were just basically confuddled as to what land was going to have homes built on it, and what was going to be nature preserve; so what the heck, clear cut it all. There was also a forestry subcontractor that got dragged into all this, but his directions from Richcraft were very specific. ie cut it all down. To the uninitiated, or the uncaring, the plot in question probably did not look like prime forest, or like anything that someone would want on their premium home lot....virgin forest Ottawa wests tend to be mainly pine, spruce and birch, and is unlike the mainly deciduous forests of the eastern USA, and indeed areas east of Ottawa, the upper valley being very poor soil as a result of the Canadian Shield.

 

[Greg]

I'm doing some work right now for a developer and I love it. The house is being framed already and now they decided that there will be no back yard unless they take out 3 large trees. I explained that this would have been about one thousand cheaper if he had called me before building, oh well.... easy money. The trees that I am not taking out are going to be in bad shape due to compaction, root removal, and grade changes in the very near future. I plan on stoping back at the home in about 4 months when the owner is in it and will sell them on some vert mulching, trimming, and 2 removals that have been topped about 10 times by the line clearance guys. those trees look like hell but were not a "problem" for the developer so he wanted to leave them. This home is about 1 block from the ocean and will probably sell for about 350k after being on the market for a few hours. It is a real shame that the trees were not protected prior to construction. It has 2 beautiful live oaks about 5 feet from the foundation and I bet they lost 1/3 of their roots and the other 2/3's had the pleasure of supporting concrete trucks and every other truck that has been on the site. The good thing is that they guy I'm working for seems to be pretty smart. I plan on giving him a little education that will hopefully help out his future projects and bring me more work.
Greg

 

[Jumper]

I think most people operating machinery do not appreciate the fragility of a tree's root system. We were called out to a private home where a cable company subcontractor had used a ditch digger to lay fibre optic cable, and had in the process destroyed about 1/3 of the root system of a nice group of sugar maples. Understandably the owner was pissed off, and was out taking pictures of us, no doubt to be used later when they sue Rogers Cable for the destruction of their trees.

 

[Jay Banks]

That's it,
education, education, education. I wish I had a nickel for every time I hear "I didn't know that about trees"