By Frank
Bucholtz

Jun 01 2007

bylaws

Proof that there is one level of enforcement for developers and another for ordinary citizens comes with a recent fine handed down to an Ocean Park developer who cut down two mature trees without a permit.

Nico River Development is being fined $2,000, plus will have to pay a $2,400 bond for replacement trees.

The company has cut almost every single one of 170 trees on a once heavily forested property at 128 Street and 26 Avenue. It hired an arbourist, as required under Surrey’s tree bylaw, who wrote a report saying 160 of the 170 trees would have to be cut down so that 21 homes could be built on the property.

Not only did the 160 trees come down, but two additional ones did as well. That’s why the developer is being fined.

Anyone familiar with that area of Ocean Park, very close to Crescent Park, one of Surrey’s magnificent forested parks, knows that there is an abundance of mature evergreens there. Most property owners are content to have large trees on their property, and accept that extra maintenance work is required as a result.

Other developments in Ocean Park have respected the abundance of mature trees and have incorporated them into their overall development scheme.

Letter writers to The Peace Arch News have decried the destruction on the Nico River property. Brian Olding wrote: “I chose to live in Ocean Park precisely because of the trees, and yes I’ll join the at least 40 per cent of my neighbours who are willing to pay for an environmentally conscious South Surrey.”

Susie Brown said she was “embarrassed” by the tree-cutting and this “is evidence of the city’s lack of community urban integrity.”

Contrast the fine that Nico River was hit with with that given to Dan McGuire of Fleetwood. He read city regulations about tree-cutting, measured four cedars in his back yard and determined they were less than 30 centimetres in diameter at chest height. Permits are required to cut down trees greater than that in diameter.

A neighbour reported him to the city for cutting down the trees. A city tree expert determined, by a trunk measurement, that the trees were greater than 30 cm at chest height, and McGuire was fined $4,000, asked to pay $4,800 in a tree replacement bond and another $135 for a permit.

McGuire and the city are trying to negotiate that bill down a bit, given that he acted in good faith.

Which of these two bylaw violators has the most to gain? In my view, it’s the developer.

Nico River will be putting 21 lots in Ocean Park on the market. Those lots will likely sell for at least $500,000 each – a 50- by 192-foot lot on nearby Harbourgreene Drive is currently listed for $599,000.

That means the value of the developed lots in total will be more than $10 million. A $2,000 fine will likely not be very noticeable on Nico River’s bottom line, and in fact, the illegal cutting of those two trees may make those lots more valuable, depending on where the trees were located.

Meanwhile McGuire, a homeowner whose property with a home is likely worth about the same as one of the Ocean Park lots, is hit with a fine twice as large – even though he tried to do the right thing by checking out the bylaw requirements before starting up the chainsaw.

The Nico River case is very similar to one last summer, involving the former Kippan property on Bell Road near Cloverdale.

It is on a steep slope above the Serpentine River. That property was heavily forested and was like a park. The developer came in and cut down virtually every tree, leaving a moonscape where large houses are now starting to rise.

While Surrey’s tree protection bylaw is better than it was, the contrast offered by the Nico River and McGuire cases shows that it isn’t much better.

The city still goes after the ordinary taxpayer for cutting down a tree in his or her own yard, but treads on eggshells when it comes to really doing something about widespread clearcutting on a developer’s land.

Frank Bucholtz writes weekly for The Peace Arch News. He is the editor of The Langley Times.