I've been browsing older threads and found this one posted by Karen Carmean concerning Tree Replacement policies. It bears on some recent work I've been doing and any input from this audience is appreciated.
Looking at the older thread there seem to be two (2) related issues. One, addressed by Julian and Paul is "restocking." Number, size species, siting and spacing considerations. This would apply in an ongoing management - urban forest replacement plan and in a subsection of any such plan dealing with damage compensation.
So the second issue is "compensation" when the application is a policy to recover damages for destroyed trees. Certainly the "restocking" issues still apply... what do you do with the compensation when received... but policies are needed to set compensation. That's why I've re-visited this thread in the Valuation topic.
There seem to be two approaches to compensation. One based on monetary value. The other on some ratio of replacement (e.g. stem for stem, dia. for dia., basal area for basal area). Monetary value has great appeal in terms of fairnes to both the public interest and the offender. However I'v encountered two situations in which monetary value is problematical. One is where municipal counsel finds that state statute does not enable the municipality to levy or seek monetary damages. The other involved tres removed accidentally on private property by the property owner without a proper tree removal permit as required by ordinance. The neighbors claimed to have been harmed and insisted on municipal action. The ordinance calls for replacement of equivilent value. So the initial indication of replacement cost is easy enough.... but then do the location depreciation! Would the permits have been granted if sought? If the owner applicant would reasonably have obtained permits and wanted to remove the tres it is axiomatic that the trees were to be removed becasue they were not contributory to owner's percieved benefit so value might = 0. But that would not make the neighbors happy. The sceanarios could go on and on. The point is in a dispute the depreciation issue could be a source of real confusion... prolonging the dispute rather than resolving it. Whose benefits get depreciated? Who actually holds the beneficial interests? As it turned out municipality, owner and neighbors all accepted a "cure" approach with no explict monetary value even discussed. (There's a whole separate thread back there somewhere on the implicit depreciation involved in CoC.) But that might not have been the case.
In the course of this exercise I researched various compensation protocols employed by public agencies. One used by a watershed applied DBH for DBH wholesale cost and then applied treble damages (the equivilant of DBH for DBH installed cost). Another used by a city applied basal area for basal area (actually at 4.5' not at "base") installed cost. Interestingly these were both staff protocols not found in any written regulations. There was no indication whether there was generally enabling statute. These seem very straighforward.
BUT - and this is the real question for you all - neither applied any depreciation. Assuming that 100% Location is appropriate becasue both watershed trees and street trees have an intended function in their locations and 100% Species is appropriate because replacement is species for species, that leaves open Condition.
Question 1. What are various experiences with x for x dimension replacement protocols? Depreciated or not?
Question 2. What are the fairness issues if Condition is not reflected? Is fairness subsidiary to what might be characterized as an inherent penalty in addition to damages? If the implicit penalty for a crummy tree is not matched by an actual penalty where Condition is actually 100% is the penalty applied capriciously? If the offender does not accept administrative penalty would the courts support a measure of damages without condition depreciation? Are these basic issues or dependent on the wording of the ordinance?
<Scott>
Posted
Reply to post by Scott Cullen, on January 04, 2000 at 07:58:42:
<Scott>
Posted
Reply to post by Scott, on January 04, 2000 at 07:58:42:
I don't know why but the link won't show. So yo'll have to type it in yourselves, sorry.
