Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Conference will now be recorded.

I'm calling to order the uh workshop the planning commission having to do with the pre-p protection uh ordinance. Welcome everybody. Glad to see that good audience and I hope we have some folks online. Uh and can we all stand uh so that invocation God, please give us wisdom and guidance as we do our best to serve this tiny portion of your world. Amen. To the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation indivisibley and justice for all. And so we understand that this uh is a notice workshop for the planning commission. The purpose of the workshop is to allow the commission and staff to discuss issues, renew information, review information, and provide general feedback in an informal non-action setting. No formal votes, approvals or recommendations will be made at this workshop and no binding decisions will be uh taken during them. Um any matter discussed this evening will require that formal action be scheduled uh for consideration and properly noticed uh for a regular planning commission uh meeting. Before we uh proceed, uh I'd like to introduce our new uh commissioners. Uh do we not have general?

Well, at least one new um commissioner, uh Janet Dubinowski down here on the uh on the end. Uh hopefully John

um Mson will join us uh at some point. Um, and then before going any further, I would like to um thank the storm water committee that got us going on uh tree uh issues. They did a lot of hard work in putting together a substantial amount of information that is um informing the towns and guiding the planning commission about the importance of trees to our community and about their relationship to storm water control and protection management. All these things will help I think our status uh Tree City USA. So, I thank them very much and several of them I see here today. Um, so now I will uh turn things over to Director Broer who will get us started on explaining what uh what we have before us. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chairman, members of the public. Um, thanks for all for all of coming. Um, I'd like to do um a brief presentation. I'll try to keep it short um because I the value of this workshop is literally hearing hearing cross talk from the commissioners and members of the public. I think that's going to be the most valuable for us. So what I'll do is I'll go through this and uh hold your questions till the end and u at the end I'll take any questions and then we can proceed on through to the uh through that. Um, I want to point out that I'm joined by our code enforcement officer, Nick Baras. Uh, I hope I pronounced that right. Um, and Nick is a code enforcement officer. He's got 15 years of experience. He's not new to this. And one of the reasons we're here this evening is because the trees in Surfside take up an inordinate amount of staff time. It's just incredible how much time trees take in this community. Can't hear me.

Can you hear me now?

Yeah, you can hear me now. Um and uh to highlight that this week um I received a set of plans uh to review for true removal uh for a new build and the opinion that I put together as a response to the application took me three and a half hours to craft. That tells me that there is something seriously a miss with our ordinance and it should be much simpler and much easier to understand and I shouldn't have to become a lawyer overnight to interpret our own code. So, one of the things that you'll hear me say probably more than a few times is I want to simplify this as much as possible. I want to save as many trees as possible. Um, and I want the general public to be able to understand uh tree renewables because as I will ask Nick during a couple of portions during the presentation this evening, I want him to give you some firsthand knowledge of him going out into the field meeting with property owners and finding out just how little people actually know about our tree ordinance. They're out there cutting trees down and they're as innocent as a bait in the woods. They had no idea that there's a any kind of an ordinance. So, or they call a tree company and the tree company starting ch same chainsaw what 7 in the morning 7 in the morning ready to cut tree down on somebody else's property.

Uh so we've got all kinds of fun stuff going. So, uh with that I'll uh I'll go ahead and block you. So, we're all clear. were talking about section 77 tree landscape regulation modification and I looked at the ordinance and this ordinance has been modified two times the last eight years. That is a lot of times to to rewrite a tree ordinance. So that tells me something also. It also tells me that um minds change, people's minds change. uh people feel that ordinances aren't doing enough, ordinances are doing too much. So, it seems like we've been trying to find that right fit for probably about the last 12 years. I also want to mention the the storm water committee's work. They they worked on this thing for three years, which blew my mind. Um that's a lot of work. That's a lot of detail. Um they had many meetings. Uh they did a what I would call serious what I call dendrology biology analysis. U they created a new chapter 18 which was going to go basically a new portion of the development code or the zoning code that doesn't exist. U it was going to be called the start it's going to be called or would be called the storm water chapter. Um what they gave us was a mix of regulation and guidance. And I put the word passion here because as a new reader uh to that ordinance when I sat down and started reading it, I got about 15 pages into it and I was like, somebody really really cares about trees here and it was obvious that the storm water committee put a lot of

passion into that. Um, it turned out to be 37 pages and I will sit here and I've got no know I've got members of the storm water committee and I know they're going to throw darts at the back of my head. You do not write a shri ordinance that's 37 pages because you need a master's degree to get through it. You probably need a PhD to interpret it too.

So, so we want to make sure that it's simple uh enough for people to understand. So, the charge was here's our existing ordinance, here's the storm waters recommended ordinance. uh make sausage out of this one. So that was the the charging heading into do that um involved in this as well. Uh they were tasked with reviewing a storm water draft doc summer of 25. So when I arrived on the scene, I think the planning commission was already in embroiled in sort of that review. um they've received public input at some of our meetings about um about the tree organs and they have directed staff to recommend a condensed version focused on clear measurable standards. That's a key and I you see those words are capitalized and highlighted clear measurable standards. We've got to try to move away as much as we can from discretionary. Well, if it's a regulation, it's not discretionary. We've got to move into the regulation world. And we got to get out of the permissive language world so that Nick and I aren't in the field trying to make a call on the fly. That's not the way you do good good code enforcement and it's not the way you write good ordinances. It has to be clear, measurable standards. and the planning commission directed staff to include a new provision uh not previously uh considered. Um so they basically they said here's the existing one here's the 37 pages take those two and somehow put them in the next master and uh and bring back product that you feel comfortable with. Um the purpose of 1770s was to make it shorter, more understandable and

enforcing enforceable while saving more trees in the town. I think um the storm water committee's work I think the work of the existing ordinance is pretty clear and what's pretty clear to me is we need to save more trees. One of the reasons people move to Surfside is because of our tree canopy. Um, one of the first things I did on undertaking this this task was I pulled up a bunch of aerial photographs that the county has that are historic photographs of area photographs of town and the area surrounding us. And it's no probably no surprise to all of you, but it was a surprise to me to see that Surfside looks like a forest compared to the rest of this county. The rest of this county has just been wiped clean of trees. um whether through good management or bad management, it really doesn't make any difference. All I saw was lots of trees in Surfside, we're a tree city, USA. Uh we have a responsibility to uphold that, I believe. And uh and to do that, we need to save more trees and we need to um stop clear cutting sites and things like that. some of the I'm going to this slide this next slide is probably going to be the probably the slide that everybody's going to gasp at but be prepared but there are like key modifications that we made and I'll go through these and I'll once I read through them I'll go through each one of them in the slide presentation um one by one redundancy and simplified language let me tell you simply what I mean by that there are four places in the current ordinance that tells you how to trim a tree. Okay, you trim a tree in the commercial zone the same you would in an R1 zone and sorry R2 zone. There's good practices of tree trimming. It should be

universal. We don't need to tell you four times out of we believe we need to save more trees, smaller trees. Right now if you're under eight inches, you go out there and you take it down. That didn't ring true with me. If we're trying to preserve more trees, we're trying to preserve more broadleaf hardwoods, those sorts of trees. I think we need to drop that number from 8 in to 6 in. So, we're going to start protecting at the 6 in level, not at the 8 in level. Um, I just mentioned the pruding guidelines consolidation. That was uh actually fairly easy to do. Uh, it was a lot of just delete delete um sections of your code. And one of the probably the one of the more startling changes perhaps um is that currently our regulations are based on zoning district and and without reciting the code back to you that you all know you know for instance R1 it's like five trees and 60 in and so on to meet your basic tree requirement. There are lots in the R1 that are as large, almost as large as one acre. And there is lots in the R1 that are as small as 8,400 square feet, possibly even smaller. And five trees on 9,000 square ft looks a lot different than five trees on an acre. We feel that we ought to use a more proportionate method to determine our tree cover and our tree canopy, not based on zoning districts, but actually based on lot sizes. So, the draft before you today has a chart that goes everything from zero to 3,000 foot lots all the way up to over an acre. and the number of trees in a number of tree EBH inches relate to the proportionality of the

size those just leave it there. At the last meeting um the planning commission u fairly strongly um that we add pines and palms would be equally counted. Now, for those of you who are unfamiliar with the code, um we do a lot of good in protecting what I would call uh broadleaf or hardwood trees, can broadleaf canopy trees, those types of trees. And we really didn't give much, we didn't place a lot of value on pines and palms. One of the real odd things that I found about our current ordinance, for instance, is that pines and palms do count in some zoning districts, but don't count in other zoning districts. And I'm like, why are we splitting that hair? Why are we going to decide to save trees or are we going to decide to that only palms can be allowed in like the R3 district? So, that seemed a little bit odd. So at the last meeting the planning commission asked me to incorporate palms and trees into the tree into the list to protect the trees along with every other tree. Why discriminate against pines and palms? Um pines are very good at at you know reducing carbon footprint. Um a full grown pine tree can hold as many as much as 15,000 gallons of water. Uh you know that's a fun fact I just looked up today. But why do we say pine trees? Pine trees do soak up a lot of water. So there's value there. And the value and and if you look at our tree canopy from a from a dendrology perspective, a lot of our tree canopy is pine canopy. So if we were to sell if we were to simply say pine trees aren't as valuable as oaks and things like that. Um I can understand why people say that. But pine trees are are an established part of our

tree canopy and make us tree, you know, help us be trees in USA. We needed to establish some fairly egregious at least for clear cutting and there are some ideas that we've floated in the current ordinance. Uh but the one that um I've seen used most successfully by other communities in South Carolina is that if you choose to clearcut and you do it under the a if you do it as an agricultural resource, in other words, you're clearcutting forest to sell to a timber yard. We can't stop you from doing that. The timber industry in South Carolina, if you don't know, is probably one of the biggest has one of the biggest lobbyist groups in the state. So, under state law, we have to allow clear cutting. However, if you decide you want to clear cut for agricultural purposes or just to clear a lot of it's easier for you to develop, you're not going to be able to develop that site for a number of years after you clearcut. we're going to hold you. We're going to hold you um doing that as a development process. And that's what's happened here. We've had and that's one of the first complaints I heard when I came here. In fact, the very evening that I was here present being presented, if you will, the town council as a union planning director, one of the council members right away asked me, "What do you think about clear cutting?" And I go, "What do you mean by clearcutting? Clear cutting is happening here, Mark. How do you stop it? I said, well, you can stop it. You can't really stop it, but you can put enough constraints on clear cutting that people will think twice before they cut. basically one of the really difficult parts uh and

I know I'm going through this a little slower than I promised is sometimes when a parcel has to take down a fairly large caliber tree, they're faced with a replacement of adding another 40 in or 50 in of tree to their property. Uh some of these parcels, it's frankly just too small to do that. It's there's just not enough room to put another 40 trees on that parcel. You just can't do it. Um so what we're going to do is we are going to add a dollar figure that she will be able to mitigate. In other words, you will mitigate up to the point where we feel that you've put enough trees back on the lot, but if you can't put another 20 trees on the lot, and we all agree that that would be insane, uh you're going to be able to make we are going to call it a donation to the tree fund. Your tree fund is going to be used to plant trees in public spaces. One of the things that I added is is this number nine. And and the planning commission didn't say this explicitly, but currently if you dissect the current ordinance that we have, you can replace some of your lost DBH inches in softwood pines. And I want to know from the commission this evening and I'd like to hear from the community as well is do we want to stick to that? Will we allow you to use softwood pines as a replacement tree

when 6in hardwoods and pines have been taken down? Or do we want to do what that says and that is replacement trees shall only be broadleaf canopy trees i.e. hardwoods. One of the number 10 is is a is a section that just needed to be in there. We have a number of invasive species here in Surfside. Uh we all live with them. Uh the list is in the ordinance. Um I won't repeat the list for you because frankly I don't remember them all. Um but we're going to allow you to take down what we call invasive species with a simple permit. You will not have to replicate or replace an invasive species lost inches. We're going to drop the protected trees from 6 to 14 uh will now be 6 to 14 in will be the protected tree category versus what it is now which is 8 to 24 in. Now landmark trees are going to be 15 and greater versus 24 and greater. So more trees are going to be protected, more trees are going to be landmarked, and that's important based on it's important for reasons of fines and replacement ratios. Uh so we're going to protect more trees and we're going to broaden the uh the two categories of protected and landmarks uh to include more tree more say smaller but less you know less massive trees will will now fit into those categories. I put number 13 in because I believe and you'll see on a subsequent slide how I feel about this is that if you're going to break the law, if you're going to take down an herb tree on a Saturday morning and try grinding it

before we get to you, I want those penalties to be serious and I want them and I want those fines to burn. I don't want you being I don't want you cutting down oak trees as a matter of you you've already factored in the business of what that's going to cost you to replace that tree. I don't want that happening. I want if you take if you're going to take a tree down on the weekend and we catch you, it's going to hurt. And and I mean to the tune of if it's a landmark tree, the tune of like $15,000. Even if it's going to hurt, you're talking. I don't want it to be the cost. I call it the cost of business. We all know and I can tell you from being here only six months, there are people here who can buy their way out of that oak tree who who will write a check $15,000 and said the oak tree is coming down. So, we all have to decide what value is this community place on that oak tree. Is $15,000 enough? Is it too much? That's really not for me to decide. That's for you to decide. not want the work of the storm water committee lost. And I'm going to recommend creating a guide to tree preservation and care. And that's going to be a companion document. So when we hand out the tree ordinance to you, you're going to get a copy of that book that'll go along with it because I think it's good. It's great education and it will probably it may even change the your mind about what trees you were thinking about planting. I think you'll you'll find that one of the first things I wanted to do with the ordinance is I want to simplify the language and I want to use what I call industry language. Uh we use something different here. Frankly, I don't even remember what it is anymore. I have to go back to the ordinance. But we're going to use DBH, folks. That's what everybody uses. It's called diameter breast height. It's not going to be diameter. It's not going to be

circumference. It's going to be DVH, which is diameter breast height. much press height four and a half feet from the ground. We're going to reduce redundancy in guidelines. Um I believe I was successful at reducing the number of pages from 31 to about 14. Am I happy with that? No. I think it should be less than 14. It should be literally in my opinion the the tree learner should be more than four pages. It should be very crisp, succinct, and understandable, but I don't think I'll ever get to that level. I don't think I'll ever get the community to move off of some of the portions of the sign, the tree limits that we already sering trees at 6 in versus 8 in uh isn't doesn't seem like that big a deal perhaps to all of you. Um, but a tree that's established at 6 in and is healthy at that stage is going probably going to end up being a landmark tree at some point. And if we were simply to roll over and use our existing, we would start losing a whole class of trees that are like six and seven inches to be able to get cut down, right? So that means there's going to be a whole I'll call it junior class of of trees getting cut down that aren't going to be able to mature into into canes. I I believe 6 in is a good number, but I I would ask the planning commission to perhaps consider whether you think maybe dropping that number even further down is a good idea to 4 in, 5 in. Uh 6 in is imagine, but I'll tell you 8 in is just way too I think you're waited too long. You've let too many I mean

we are seeing trees disappear at an alarming rate when we allow trees under 8 in to be cut. Want to protect smaller trees? Well, trees preserved at 6 in DBH have a significantly higher survival rate. Waiting until 8 in delays protection for several years. often the very very years when development pressure is the greatest. Uh replacing a lost 68 inch tree with an equivalent can be that typically requires multiple new trees and years of growth. Um what I want everybody to sort of get into mindset is is that we're not just out there protecting that big tree canopy that we have now. We've got to start thinking about with the next generation. You know, I'm always I'm always impressed by when I go to a new town and I drive down their main street and the oak trees literally arch over the street and you literally drive through this like tone of oak trees and I think to myself, who had the foresight 200 years ago to plant live oak trees 60 feet down center on both sides of this road? And I think to myself, we are that generation. We need to be the next generation of creating the next tree canopy here because the tree canopy that's in place today isn't going to be the same tree canopy that is 25 years from now. So, we've got to start thinking about bringing up the smaller stock and create new tree canopy and younger tree canopy. This isn't this isn't the best picture that I could find. Um, but what I'm trying to get across here is that um, zoning isn't the best way to parse out how many trees you have to have on your lot. It really should be based on your parcel size. So, if you have a big parcel, more I mean, it's it's just simple, folks. Big parcel, more trees.

Smaller parcel, less trees. Currently, I don't have that in the code. I have to do it based on zoning. And I will tell you and Nick will tire that just ain't working. It's not working. I must admit, and I, you know, this is a this is going to be a conversation that we're all going to have here tonight. I was a little surprised by the planning commission's uh mission that they wanted to protect pines and palms because for years they haven't been given their due. We just haven't protected them. And I will tell you that as a newcomer to this town, when I drive around this town, I will tell you palms are a large part of your character here. You start taking out all the palm trees, you're going to lose some of the character that's here. Now, are palm trees as advantageous to the overall ecology of the tree canopy? I would tell you no. But we're not here just about storm water. We're here about town character. We're here about cleaner air. We're here about creating a community with a legacy of tree protection that very few communities actually have. You know, most communities that you go to in South Carolina, well, again, take out an aerial photograph and look at Ory County sometime. It's startling. It's startling. So pines and palms are often part of our visual identity and mature pines store significant carbon and attain large biomass. Protecting them provides a straightforward forward climate air quality co- benefit. And we have some monster monster pine trees out there. They're they're doing their job. They're out there doing their work.

So when I said I wanted the the fines to hurt, this is what I wanted to be able to remember, but I didn't remember all the words in it. Fines structured to ensure violations are not treated as a cost of doing business, but as a consequence substantial enough to discourage repeat offenses. I don't want to read that again. You all get it? I want it to hurt. And I want I want the tree removal world out there, the people who cut trees and prune trees to get the message that if they're going to come to Surfside and they're going to break the law, we're going to whack them. We're going to whack them hard because if we're going to go to the bother of protecting these trees and doing all this great work, I don't want somebody out there taking down oak trees on the weekend. I just Yeah, we shouldn't. We we just can't tolerate that. So if you take down any tree, any author unauthorized protected tree, it's a tree above 6 in, it's going to be $3,000 right off the bat. But if you take down a landmark tree, a 14inch oak tree, 15 in oak, 25 inch oak tree, excuse me, $15,000. Um, we I haven't seen it yet, but I know it's been done here because people have told me it's been done. And that is they're told they can't remove the tree. They call the tree company and they have a conversation with the tree company that basically says, "Wack this tree so it dies. Take enough of the limbs off of this tree. Pull out enough of the canopy that this tree doesn't have a chance of living. you're going to end up with a $1,000 fine and that's going to be on the property owner. So, all of these fees have to be reviewed

and approved by town council. They can't actually be a body of this ordinance. They're going to go in what is called the fee and fine schedule. But I need us to all agree conceptually that we're going to start seriously enforcing this and it's not going to be treated as a cost of doing business because I ran into one of those about two months ago. Nick will tell you somebody came in moved from out of state and I and I and being from the northeast I can kind of understand the mentality is is that I'm not moving to Surfside Beach so I can continue to rake oak trees, oak leaves and have oak leaves in my pool. I kind of understand that. I get it. But Surfside Beach wants to protect those trees and I want the council to back us up by putting these numbers in our feet and our find uh it's a it's a it's something that the council has to pass every year. So these numbers can increase over years and and most of the time those fees usually stay stagnant for a number of years. Like the $15,000 will probably hang around for like five years before anybody on council says, "You know what? $15,000 is now the cost of doing business to remove a tree. What are we going to do about that?" Well, okay, council, change that number. So I want council to set the fee and L on French bases as well. As I mentioned, some of the mitigation on some of these parcels um under the under the current ordinance, I'm not going to say it's going to happen under the the new ordinance, but under the current ordinance

suggests that on your 10,000 square foot parcel, you've got to plant 25 trees. You can't get 25 trees in a 9,000 foot parcel after the owner has built out the house to every square inch of the setbacks, every square inch of the building height, every square inch of lot size or lot coverage and impermeable surface. So once you factor all those numbers in, it leaves preciously little land sometimes on some of these small lots. So how are we going to get even? I mean, that's really what we're doing, right? I'm trying how do we how do we parse that out? How do we We know you can't plant 40 trees on that lot. How are we going to do it? Well, we're going to let you do it on a per inch basis. And that's a number uh that I think will become debated. Um, I looked at other tree ordinances from around the area and I can tell you they haven't updated their numbers in a number of weeks because most of them were around $150 per DBH inch. Uh, I think I suggested to you in our last planning commission, it should be $250 per DBH inch. Um, again, it shouldn't be the cost of doing business. It should hurt because you're removing trees and sometimes you don't have to remove some of those trees. So where's all this money going to go? It's not going to go in the general fund. It shouldn't go in the general fund because that can be used to buy loops for firemen. Not saying that's a bad thing. You know, it should be used for trees, right? So I've already spoken to the Department of Public Works. spoken to our finance department and we can we can

consider a separate line item budget bucket if you will in the general fund that all of these funds all these fines all these DBH requirements will go into and the director I've placed it on the director of public works the director of public works will decide where and when those trees get planted. And I've even talked to him about maybe even having like an Arbor Day tree giveaway. Like let's say we the city goes out and buys let's say 30 15gallon oak trees and we have a giveaway. People put them in their yards. You know, people who aren't doing any work and want to plant some trees. So how do we get more trees planted? Just an idea. But we can buy new trees we can put at the parks. We can put them in right away. We can use them for trimming trees that we have. It's going to be used for trees. I guess that's what I'm trying to get across is that we're going to establish a tree fund that is restricted to use only for trees. And as I mentioned, um I think we need a a guide that's written in in language that scientist, an average homeowner. so that when they decide on what tree they're planting, they have some knowledge of what they probably should be planting and what probably won't work in a certain place on their site or won't work in a wet spot or will work in a dry area or will work in sandy soil or those sorts of things. So, I want to have this as a companion document uh to the ordinance, the ordinance getting approved first and once we get the ordinance approved, then we can go back in and we can actually create this tree

care guide. And I think it's important Because I will tell you, and I'm not disparaging the the members of the public here, don't get this wrong, but a lot of people don't know a lot about trees. We have people come into the office all the time, and they just don't know a lot about trees. Uh, and Nick and I spend a lot of time educating, spending a lot of time educating people about trees. And I thought, man, maybe it's time that we put something like this out. So, um, it won't be hard to do. There are a lot of places who have already done things like this. Uh but we have a wealth of information already contained in that information that the storm water committee gave us. So we've got a jump start on this already. So I want to take that information, boil it down, distill it, illustrate it. I want to have like lots of illustrations so people can see what we're talking about when we're suggesting how to do this so that the average homeowner knows how to prune the tree, when to prune the tree, when to prune the tree. Oh my god, I see people all the time in the middle of summer with berries out whacking trees up. I'm like, "Oh no, you're not supposed to whack trees this time of year." Just simple things like that. Just simple things like that. So that was the uh the last thing I wanted to do. um some continued work. One of the uh things that um it will not be part of this ordinance, but I believe I need to set up as part of my team is to have a what I call an arburous peer review. Why do I want to do that? Right now, the way the ordinance is written, if you present me with a letter from a licensed arborist that that 40in oak tree in your backyard is diseased, I have to let you cut it down. I'm not an arborist. I can't tell you that you're wrong. And Nick and I kind of wonder and squint our

eyes sometimes when we get one of these letters and go, I wonder how much the homeowner paid for that letter to be written. So what we plan to do is we plan to retain three separate independent arborists to be used on a rotational basis that when we receive one of these letters we're going to do our own field investigation and our own arborist is going to tell us whether he believes the letter from the tree company's arborist uh holds water. That's basically all it's going to do. Uh because we're a little sus we're a little suspicious. We've we've gone out into the field been told that a tree is diseased or stressed. That's a that's a popular word. Tree is stressed. Uh gee, I'm almost every tree in town is stressed to some extent. Um and ultimately as part of separate action, a council adoption for the tree fund provisions. Yeah. How's the tree fund going to work? who's going to who's going to hold the money, who's going to authorize the that, you know, I'll call it the nuts and bolts of how the tree fund's going to work. That's not going to be part of the work here. But I think we all agree that a tree fund would be a great idea. um and a and a a way that the community um and the development of the community helps pay to reestablish and establish continue to establish our tree canopy as a community. Um, I want the members of the public to know that this isn't the last time they're going to be able to take a a whack at us, you know, in terms of the ordinance. Um, once we assimilate the comments from this evening, um, I'll be coming back to the

planning commission. It won't be at the February 3rd meeting. I won't be able to simulate a new ordinance in that short amount of time, but probably in March, I'll be coming back to you with a revised ordinance based on what we hear tonight, what you tell me, what I hear from the audience, what you all think is the right way to go. We're not going to vote on anything like we said at the top of the meeting. Uh, but I want to get a general idea from the commissioners that we're headed in a in in a a direction that we all can agree on is the right direction. And ultimately uh any ordinance as you know has to go through two meetings at council. Uh one's a public hearing and one is what they call a second read. That's where they actually adopt uh the regulation itself. So there's going to be several opportunities for the community to stay engaged and the trees thank you. Uh, with that I'll uh stop talking because my mouth is about as dry as can possibly be.

Uh, just open it up. So, commissioners, I assume people have questions.

Okay, I know how to get started. I can start. We're going to go back to that slide with the list, right? Rick right there. Okay. Now, we don't you don't have to start on number one, but pick one, folks. Pick one that you think that you're like, "No, that's a great idea, Mark." Or, "Mark, that's the dumbest idea we've ever heard of." Would it be more helpful if we stick to a topic, go through it, and

Yeah. Yeah. Pick a topic, stick to it. Um, and, uh, you know, round out some conversation so that Nick and I get a pretty good idea of um, the general consensus. Yeah. And I use the word general consensus. I'm not gonna say we're gonna make everybody on the commission happy. General consensus that we're headed in that direction. Okay. I'm guessing we can skip over number one. I think uh everybody would agree. I I hope can I get a general head nod from the commission? Yeah, we're going to try to simplify this here.

So, moving to number two. Is there anybody who would like to ask questions about that? Well, let me ask a question. I'll be more provocative. Do you want to drop it to 4 in? No. Okay. Please. Uh, okay. First of all, um, thank you for the great work you've done on this. Uh, I really like it. It's not perfect, but it's No, it's not.

It's really good. Um, as far as the 6 in uh inch cut off, uh, I've changed my mind a little bit over the past uh, month or so. Thinking about it, I think perhaps I could be in good support. 4 in for particular trees. Okay. Like live oaks. I wouldn't want to see it go 4 in for the bulk of the trees in town. Okay, I agree. Okay, go ahead. Well, that's basically the comment I have there.

Well, let me let me maybe instigate a little conversation. The reason I agree with what that comment is is because I believe that dropping it to four inches for like live oaks, maples, magnolia, trees that we all as a group consider very valuable on leaf canopy trees drop to four. I'm not so sure I want to drop to four for like pines. Now remember, pines and palms have always been sort of the the four sisters here of of the of the tree canopy. Everybody laughs kind of um maybe the size for pines and palms is higher than six inches. Just suggesting that as a conversation for all of you to think about.

So I'm gonna Oh, are you finished? I'll just Yeah, just add on. I like that. Especially for those two trees. I mean, I I like having those two trees around. I mean, the pines and the palms, but boy, they're all big to begin with. So, there's not going to be very many. Uh, yeah. Yeah. Everything. I mean, palm trees, you get them and they're big already. They're going to be six or eight inches already. So,

you know, protecting them in the same manner, I would. So a sliding scale and you don't have we don't have to be exact but a sliding scale perhaps on a tree can a tree type hardwood versus softwood versus palm versus something like that. Is that sound like a a more advantageous path to take? If I can jump in. Yeah, please. That's what we're here for. Uh, so, uh, I think that there are probably a lot of people in the community that have no idea what DBH is and what a 4 inch or 6 in DBH tree is. Should I have your

Can you stand up and give everybody an idea of what we're talking about in terms of the size of the tree? Yes, I did. Because people need to know. Oh, my tree here. in this camp versus that camp. Believe I have a picture in here where somebody was actually measuring the tree with a You did, but I didn't know what size it was indicate. Well, you could use you could use my leg. You know, that's probably about a 4 inch three or four inch. Three or four inch.

I could jump in his leg. That is why we went away from DBH last time because people normal householders don't own calipers. And it's how do I decide if I need a permit for this? And that's why we and measuring to the middle of the tree is not something citizen can do either. So that's why we went to circumference to make it more understandable for me. I'm not saying it was

excit let me tell you who does understand DBH. We understand DVH. The enforcement staff understands DVH. Arborists understand DVH. Homeowners do not. So, but is it it's diameter. It's simply the diameter of the tree. Take take your take your measuring. Take your yard stick and go out to the tree and measure from one side of the tree to the other. That's diameter.

It was it was a matter of if if the question if if stamp even needed to be summoned. We we actually go out in the field with that tool. We actually have we actually my the first day Nick was on the job I said we need a we need something to measure DVH and it's yeah it's it's an arborous tape so it gives me circumference diameter either side.

That was one of the first things I asked for when I came on because coming from Yeah. I'm so sorry. uh coming from Pittsburgh, you know, to move down here to Surfside. And my probably first month and a half on the job was learning this and riding with Keith Williams, our fire marshal, who was the man who taught me how to do this because back home you wanted to cut a tree. You just cut a tree. So, this is this is a lot to learn and a lot to take in. But in doing research, trying to find tools to speed it up.

Yeah. Because there's some days I'll go out for a tree permit and it's not a 10-minute job. You got to measure every tree out there. I'm on, you know, Google images trying to, you know, make sure I'm getting the right tree that I'm marking down, you know, between the oaks and the pines and this. So, trying to find these tools to make it quicker and easier for us. It's still not quick and easy, you know. Yeah. the tools are the tools are available to to help, but they still spend a lot of my day measuring each tree, you know, what's coming down and things of that nature. So,

so just give us a visual what what would be a 4 in DBH? What's that micro? What's that micro? What? Yeah, that's a 3 inch Three and a half. Okay. Top or bottom. Don't you start. Don't make this more difficult. Right in the middle. I just looked it up. But it's not a hard thing at all. You got a tape measure. And I think everybody's got a tape measure, right? It's just the circumference divided by about pi. Okay.

But you got to remember what pi is. 3.1 3.1427 whatever it was. I mean but I mean you can look it up. I mean it's no that that's very true. Yes. I mean, several people have jobs. Oh, I'm here. Our our our guide should definitely include information about how one determines DBH than the average Yeah. person.

So, it's it's a it's a measurement taken approximately 4 and 1/2 ft. Right off your breast height, they said four and a half feet. So I mean if you're as tall as some people brush he tight knee but maybe a little higher but the official um definition is 4 and 1/2 ft above grade. So walk up to your tree measure about 4 and 1/2 ft. Take your ruler out and just see where this part of the tree and this part of the tree fit on that ruler and measure the number of inches over. Well, I I think I would be in favor of dropping to um the four inches um for uh live oaks and I don't know may maybe all uh landmark type defined uh trees.

Yeah. And help me here. Oaks, maples, magnolia, cherry. We got cherry. We got a lot of cherry trees here. Ding. Well, the last one I saw was a like 16inch cherry tree. I was like, "Wow, we got a cherry tree here." Um, those are probably the four main categories. And oaks contain different, you saw the one picture I had there of the different all the different oak trees. Pin oak, h, you know, pin oak, live oak, there's all kinds of oak. Um,

I think I've leaned towards the 4 in because I have noticed that with a lot of new builds in town that people have planted live oaks, but of course they're not planting gigantic live expensive. They're they're planting things that are relatively young and they might just be on the cusp of that those four inches and we should be I think encouraging those uh trees uh in terms of their preservation and uh

yeah there's a obviously there's a uh there's a there's a cost to this to the private property owner And you can plant trees at 5 gallon, 15gallon, 24 inch box, 48 inch box specimens. Um, no one here is no dare say somebody will strike me down and say you're wrong, but I don't think anybody who's ever planted a 48 inch box tree on your site unless they want instant character. Like let's say you have like a circular driveway in your yard. You know, you get one of those big houses with a big circular driveway. The other thing you drop 20, you drop a 48 inch live oak into that, you've got instant character on your street tomorrow. But a 48 inch oak tree last I checked around $4,000 just for the tree and then probably another three for installation because they've got to bring it out of flatbed with a forklift. So um people will make up their own minds as to how they're going to mitigate. They and most will probably choose 15 gallon. Those are the ones that if you go to the if you go to Home Depot and you try picking it up yourself, you can pick it up at a 10. That's the 15 gallon one. The five gallon one is the one you put put like 10 of them in the back of your trunk and are all like rose bushes or something. That's like a little five gallon thing.

Uh twigs. Yeah, twigs. Um, I have seen a couple of 24inch box trees planted in town, but not many of them. Again, like when they say box, they literally come in a wooden, you've seen them at probably nurseries. They're sitting out and they're out in these big giant wood boxes and they put them on a flatbed truck and they deliver them and they literally have a machine that they literally cut the ground out, goes like that. A big giant spade, pulls the dirt out, drops a tree in and puts the dirt back. It's It's amazing to watch, but I'm getting off subject here. Um, do we have anyone else that wants to address the uh the size issue?

The size issue, not the lot size issue, but the tree size issue. Scott?

Yes. Um, I apologize if this turns into a u less of a question and more of a rhetorical statement, but um I think fellow members of the commission uh understand that you know been around for on this commission for you know what, however many years, seven years or so. Um and I've always been on the side of the residents. I've always been on the side of individual, you know, rights and freedoms and less government telling us everything that we need to do and can do and can't do and empowering, you know, our own individual rights. And what I'm wondering is we had a tree ordinance and it was I there were six votes for yes and one vote for no and that vote no vote was me and the reason was uh the penalties and the fees. Um I I and this does happen to six and 8 inch um but I might be able to get everything into this little encapsulation and let everybody else talk. So, if you can bear with me for a moment. Um, so saying all of that, we're we're debating about 6 in and 8 in and we're talking about um proportional sizes of lots. So, if you have a bigger lot, you are required to have more trees. We're talking about more fees and fines and schedules. And I do commend you. Thank you so much for I mean clearly all the work that you're doing. The question or the rhetorical statement is it seems like you've been pressured to make this ordinance more draconian. Um 4 in versus 8 in. Um

you know the tree sizes, fees, schedules, you know, establish some penalties. Um now I wonder how popular this will be with the residents. you know, if if we're saying, "Well, if we don't do this, everybody's going to do everybody's going to cut everything down." Is that true? And if that's the case, then the popular thing is not this ordinance that you're proposing. it it's more of you know the pressure and with all due respect you know to to the stormwater committee and I've talked and worked with you on a personal basis um they can be very persuasive and um you know everybody has their viewpoints and their opinions and I'm wondering if you're feeling pressure because the storm water committee worked so hard for three years on this and that's all you're probably hearing and are how popular do we know like if the if every resident was in here would they say yes let's make it 4 in yes let's add more fun now I will say that oftentimes and I um this is a this is kind of an interesting thing but probably most residents in my opinion would say yes we love Tree City USA we want more trees here. But as long as you're not pressuring me to add trees, you know, as long as it's Yeah. If my I I'm all for having all my neighbors do that, but don't put it on me. Um and you know, I know how much pressure it can be, especially now that we're looking into this and all the work, you know, respectfully, that the storm water committee has put on this. Um, but there are several things that are even more

strict than our thing that I voted no for. Um, and I'm just concerned that we are appointed as a commission. Each one of us appointed. I don't know if anybody's been elected on here. I don't think so. Town council is elected. So, they have to be more concerned about the residents. We It doesn't matter. We're not going to be fired. You know, we're not going to We have to be appointed. Now ultimately, you know, council is, you know, so um I'm just wondering, it seems like this has been a pressure point to make things more strict. I I do support the tree fund. I do support keeping it simple, stupid. Um I don't support all these extra things. Now, do we all want do we want clear cutting like Myrtle Beach has done? I don't think anybody wants that. But also, I mean, give a little credit to the residents. That's my rhetorical statement. If there's a question in there that you want to answer, if anybody wants to answer, I'm fine with that. I said my piece and thank you for listening.

Let me respond.

Sure. In my career, I probably four tree ordinances. None of those tree ordinances ever exceeded more than three pages. This one's 14 pages. If you all just said, Mark, just go back and give us the tree ordinance that you think we ought to have. It would be a four page ordinance and Nick and I would be able to enforce it and you'd be able to understand it and your neighbors would understand it. This is a deep much deeper dive than any tree ordinance I've ever worked. But I will tell you that there are tree ordinances in communities besides us that are longer than 14 pages. They go into great detail about every specy you can think of. One of the things you said though that caught my ear that want to respond to based on my only only on my six months here so far. Our issue a hasn't been with the homeowner living in a house who's not expanding his house who just wants to take a tree down. That has just never been a real problem. We find a way. We don't it's not egregious on them. This ordinance, in my opinion, is written more for the knockdown of the small cottage and mansionization is here. Believe it or not, you know it's here. people are knocking down that $250 to $400,000 existing brick home and putting up a mansion and they want to develop it out to the maximum envelope possible. That's where our uh I want to say our fight is. That's

not the right word, but I want you to understand that it's not existing residents that Nick and I are having problems with. It's the new people, the new builds, the contractors, the, you know, the speck homes. Those are the people that were having to sort, if you look, corral in a little bit and and having to write three and a half, you know, three and a half hour opinion the other day on a on a simple tree plant. Three and a half hours it took me to write that opinion because this is complicated. This is not simple stuff, folks. This is complicated. and um all weren't sitting there and we're all sitting in a private room having a beer together. You know what I said? We're going to get rid of this. We're going to put boil this down to three and a half, four pages. You probably all have me fired in a in a nancond. But I can tell you we can do the same thing in four pages that we're doing in 14 and we will save more trees. But there's a lot of stuff lost in here. There's a lot of stuff that, you know, there's a lot of stuff in here that I think is, what's the word I want to use? Historical precedent. Maybe there's stuff in here that's been in ordinances going back several years that has carried through. And I think sense of security that this is going to protect a tree can be in town because it's because it is complex and because they do have to come to us and it's not a weekly occurrence. It's almost an every other day occurrence that Nick comes into me and goes, "I've got a problem. They want to do this. They don't want to do this. This is the tree. It's this. And we have to go down. We

have to pour through this thing and we have to dissect the language because it's the words. We have to dissect the language to make sure that our opinion and our final direction to that new homeowner is correct. That's an incredibly large amount of Nick and my time in the town. Much more than it should be. I'm just gonna be honest with you. But I want you to feel I don't want you to feel like we're going after this isn't going to hurt a single family owner who wants to take down a you know a sick and dying oak tree in the backyard. Sick and dying take it. Got a letter from a just the other day. Yep.

Nick and I looked at the tree and it looked okay to us. But our arborist told us, "Look inside where the where the tree came together. Look inside here. You'll see." Sure enough, there was decay in the tree and the tree was probably in the next year or two when the wind was just going to go like this, just split open. So, all I can leave you with is I appreciate what you're saying, but I want you to know who this ordinance is going to rattle. It's not going to rattle the everyday homeowner down. It's not going to rattle them at all. They've been living with this ordinance just the way it is. Doesn't really change from that. We're bringing the tree size down a little bit, but most people that have lived in our houses more than five years have already done the tree removal thing that they needed to do. Now, if somebody comes in, it's a homeowner and they want to take a tree down and it's not diseased and it's within 10 ft of the foundation or it's perceived as a safety issue, I read that permit immediately. Take it down. You know why? Because if a pine tree snaps in the middle of the night and it's close to their children's bedroom and that tree crashes in and kills a kid, I won't be able to live with myself. I won't. So, if somebody comes in and say they have a safety issue, the reason they want to take a tree down is for safety issue. Every town attorney in this state would tell me the same thing. You do not want to litigate a death of a child because of a tree. Let them take the tree down. So, I hope you understand where I'm coming from. I would love to see this tree ordinance about three or four pages. Honestly, I really would. Um, and you know, maybe maybe that's what I do. Maybe that's my next step. Maybe I bring you this one back next time with all the comments that we're going to have tonight. But I bring you back a four-page ordinance.

See if you get through and see if you have any heart over it. Right. We can do that. Okay. But thank you for your comment. I appreciate because nobody really nobody really sort of uses that argument on the ordinance is that how's this going to affect the everyday resident who lives on a medium-sized lot with an existing home? How does that impact them? I don't think any of us want to hurt that person. We don't. We just want to get the per I brought Nick for a reason. Okay. Nick has a couple of infield. He's only been here what? What? Coming up on four months.

Four months. He's got forest restores out there already. He got called literally the police hadn't come and literally shake off the tree removal company because they were removing a tree at the neighbor's request on his neighbor's lot. They were going to take a tree down on on somebody else's lot. So, you know, it's a it's fun stuff out there. It's a wild wild west. And we got tree companies working on weekends and taking trees down and grinding stumps before we uh even know what happened.

And if you don't mind, like yeah, I would like to say you we're we're talking about including the the palms and pines somewhere. They're being denied because we're not counting them trees. Once they're included, now you're giving a little more work to be done for some of these people who might have a tree and say, you know, this tree needs to go blah blah blah. they can't get an arborist letter. The arborist doesn't agree. But now you're including these trees. So you're saving these ones along the lines but still letting the public take care of one that they want to get rid of. Yeah. Is is how I see, you know, that's the other thing I run into out there.

Yeah. They're able to balance the the the scale here a little bit easier if we allow them the palms and pines. Right now the palms and pines drop off and they've got palms and pines and we don't even like give the palms and pines their day in court in the in the equation. We want them to have those in the equation. Yeah. Yeah. We want to have those in the equation. I'm sorry. This is a workshop. I'm not sure we have you know we're not going to take we're not going to do like word for word like minutes of like everything we're saying. But you we we could go, you know, we go out and and I tell somebody, you know, I have four trees on my lot, but I have two palms. The palm trees don't count. You only have four trees. What do you mean? Yeah.

So then that's where part of this too is besides doing that, it's it's education for the public to say, "Hey, I have the ordinance with me. I'll show you the district you're in. Here's what we have to have." And that's where it comes into, okay, if we do this one, you have to plant X. You know what I mean? It's it's things to work, but I tell them I you can't plant I can't count your palm trees. And they're like, oh, it's a tree. I said, I get you. It's a big one, too. But it doesn't it just doesn't count sometime. Yeah. Currently, you can. You will be. So, can you get back to Yes. Yes. the list. Go for it. If you got the button.

Oh, no. You want to put it back on the base back up? Yeah. So they can get back on. I can find it. Take a shot. Anybody? Come on. Madam Chairman. Yeah.

I'd just like to chime in on the the idea of dropping to 4 in for some specific special trees. I can support that because I took to heart what what Mark had to say about protecting our next generation of trees. I think that's very important that they not be wiped out before they get to be special trees. So I can support what I think both Larry and Carolyn were saying about that. Okay. So creating a I'll call it a 4inch class. Yeah. And a 6inch class and maybe even a 10-in class for maybe find some problems maybe. Right. We could we could do that. We could create sort of a sliding scale.

What's the smallest you see on homes? You know, like somebody was it you Larry that said that that they come already like a certain size. Yeah. I think anything that can be done to encourage the percentage to be higher in the more favored trees. and a whole lot less a lot of lolly pines. We got no love for that tree. I'll just say lollies here. Do we have lollies here or whatever? The long Georgia. That's a Georgia tree. Well, I swear. Oh, okay. Well,

they all look like lobies to me. The one we do, we do protect them. It's called a long leaf. He's not but but him. But one of seven. Yeah. So, anything that can incentivize the the more favored trees in the canopy. I think

if unless I'm missing something I'm getting a clear message that maybe that we create and don't make it too complex, just simple, you know, four maybe six, maybe six, maybe eight, and just parse out the the tree canopies amongst valuable trees to I don't want to say less valuable trees. trees valuable, but you know what I'm talking about. Okay. Anybody else on tree size? Okay. How about uh lot size versus zoning district?

Sure. Um first let me say, hey, I'm sorry I was late getting in here. I have my I have a day job and some folks on the left coast don't respect the fact that two o'clock their time is 5 o'clock my time. So, uh, sorry about being late. Uh, especially this is my first meeting. I'm John Monson by the way that everybody out there because brand new on the group here. Um, so back to the point at hand on the lot size versus the the zoning district. Uh, my comment on that is is yeah, 100% agree because of the the disparity of the sizes and everything. However, if you look at our regulations, and they're common to every municipality in the United States, there are certain commercial regulations that require um you know, I don't know what our specific reg say, but they require setbacks uh commercial to commercial. They have a different setback commercial to uh to uh housing. Then you have things like, okay, well, depending on what your commercial property is going to do, uh, restaurant's going to require a certain number of parking spaces, which is pvious surface.

Uh, all right. So, I don't know how you do it. I'm just telling you, you're if you're looking at a residential lot size of of, you know, 15,000 square feet, okay, go ahead. Have at it. Require the tree. But if you're looking at a commercial lot size, that's going to be considered arbitrary and capriccious by an attorney that just got out of school. I would agree. So, uh, we we need to make the lot size the case for the residential, but for commercial by zone, it's by zone because we No, they

they can't comply. They physically can't comply. Yeah. There's a there's a site, John, that we have on on Highway 17 that I was talking about just today with someone uh that currently looks like a forest site on Highway 17 and it is the location for a hotel that we just approved at the planning level. And we always say to ourselves, well, that forest is going to disappear and people are going to lose their minds when it disappears until they see what the and they don't see it. I've seen what the planting landscape plan is. Yeah.

And the amount of trees they're putting back on that site is incredible. Or they can whip out their checkbook and pay $12 million for that lot and do whatever they make a forest. Yeah. Right. We have something called the design overlay that takes care of the commercial lots. I'm I probably should have started with this. This is primarily aimed at residential trees. Uh but the commercial part of this really handled quite easily quite well. This is really for mostly for residential stuff. Um can I make a just a quick comment on lot size? Yes sir. Absolutely.

I like the idea. Um, you sit on your property and you look out your front door and you see a big front yard. You got to remember a lot of that front yard is in the right away. So, isn't isn't part of your lot and you really can't plant stuff in there. That's right. You know, those trees that are in that right away don't count to your your property. We've uh we've actually had people try to do that. They'll give us a tree plan and they'll show the lot lines and sure enough they got two trees outside the lot line and they're counting those trees during the lot. We go. Sorry, no that's a tree in the public right away. That's a public tree. You don't need to count. That's all I Yeah, that's good comment though.

I I can be on board with changing from zone to lot size. I am against changing I am against increasing the number of trees that are required. Okay.

Um we have there are a lot of people and we say it's not you know you're saying it doesn't impact the residents. It's more, you know, for new construction. But if you're increasing the number of trees that are required on a lot, at some point it's going to impact residents who already no. No. Okay. Tell me how

you're an existing lot. You are a lead. Let's say let's say you're on a lot and you have five trees and the requirement is for seven trees. There's we're not going to reach back and tell you you have to plant two trees on a lot. You're what we call legally legal you're now legal nonconforming relative to trees. So what are the trigger points? The trigger point would be redevelopment of the site. Um removal of any of the trees like so let's say you wanted to put a pool in. you want to put a pool in that's going to trigger it. Uh, so then that person is going to have to have seven trees or they're going to have to or they're going to have to buy DBH interest.

And I agree, we're going to have a lot we're, you know, seeing a lot more large homes being built. And I think that we are also, you're saying it's not going to impact residents, but the people who live here, they will be either adding on to their homes or renovating or and do I want them to be able to take down every tree? No. Because they're No, absolutely not.

I do want to protect the trees, but I think there needs to be a balance. Well, then what I need you all to do is to do your homework, look at the ordinance and see what number of trees I'm recommending for lot size. It's not egregious. Take a look at it. In fact, I would say it's tree light based on lot size. It's in it's in the ordinance. Go through it. Tell me if you think the numbers are too high. I do. I have been through it. You think the numbers are too high? I do. Really? I do. Okay. I'm going to give you I'm gonna give me a moment. So, I'm going to pull one out here.

I I haven't had the opportunity to do it yet. I hope that I will take the opportunity just to pick a couple of blocks and drive by, you know, calculate what the square footage of those lots are. We don't have to calculate it. We can find out what I know what the lot size of every lot in town is. And I can I can look easily, too. Um, so a 12,000 to 16,000 square foot lot. Do you all know about how big that is? It's about a quarter of an acre, seven trees. If you think that's high, now's the time to tell. I'm telling you, I'm not giving my opinion. That's That is my opinion. Okay. You chairman, but Senator,

is that right? You look at it. Yeah, Madam Chairman. or not. I have heard. Yes, but that's because of how we plan.

Okay. All right. I'm gonna keep things moving. I I'm going to task every one of the planning commissioners to go to page nine of 6 to 15. And by the end of this meeting, I want you to go through the num minimum number of trees required on category 5 through 8 and tell me what you think the minimum number of trees are. Got to find a consensus here some. If you think seven trees on 12,000 to 16,000 is too many, mark it down to five. Mark it down to four. Whatever you Yeah. I mean, this is your ordinance, not mine. Um, it be interesting to see how many watts are that big. Right. I mean, my I'm not going to do a lot of

7,000 category three. I got five trees. That probably you probably Madam Chairman. Okay. I just piggybacking on this whole conversation about proportionality. Y um chorus and non-corous uh a stone driveway is porous, correct?

A pool is porous. Um, so if somebody has pretty big lot, they have a pretty sizable pool, you know, with this would they have to have, you know, if or if they didn't have a pool and added the pool, which is a popular thing in this area, then having several trees on this property with a big pool and you know, is that going to itres? They're removing trees to put the pool in.

Usually you have to do that and which would mean now I don't know who's all owned a pool but if you have a pool and everything else is trees it it's like hell on earth maintaining and I had three pools in my life and you know so it it's I think it's something to consider. Um, you know, we're we're in unique town. That's all I can say. Members of the commission, table 17-4.1 on page 89 is the most important piece of legislation in this entire document. Page eight and 15. Okay. Yeah, I got you.

Um, I don't want to sit here and and go through these one by one. We'll be here all night. Um, what I need the commission to do is in your spare time, not tonight, in your spare time, pull these two pages out of the ordinance, take your pen, go through those numbers, keep them the same or modify them, and then please submit them to me so that I have an idea of where you all stand on this because I tried to do a proportionality of it based on lot sizes. And um, I will tell you that I think my proportions are fair. I disagree with you. I'm sorry. I respectfully disagree with you. Disagree.

It's okay. We can respectfully disagree with one another. Yeah. Um, but if you all feel the same, then tell me tell me that, you know, you want to drop the number to five or six trees. Uh, you know, let's let's let's put together an ordinance that not only works for us, but works for the private resident who wants to put in a pool who now has to take out two trees and now has to replace three trees because now he's triggered the new number based on his lot size. That's right. Right. So, don't worry.

Yeah, absolutely. This goes back to something I talked about last summer. Um where you're counting trees and uh you've got two numbers. that number of trees and you need correct that's you can get some lots or um that uh where was I going that I I I pressed that time for going either or so instead of going yeah you needed to have both if you met on one or the other you were good so either number of trees or DBH

I've seen there's a lot of lots on Hollywood that have monster oaks and they're not going to have seven seven trees. They might have three monster oaks and have an 80% canopy coverage. How can you do better than that?

He raises a very good point. And the reason I say he raises a good point because the ordinances that I've written not number of trees and DVH inches. It's DVH inches. We don't even count trees in the ordinances I've written. It's DVH inches. You got a 40inch old tree on your site, you're good to go. You're just good to go. We're not going to hammer you with another, oh well, gee, you're on a 5,000 square foot. You're going to have to give me three more trees. Yeah. Yeah. Forget that. Exactly.

And and you're going to end up with Right. You're going to end up not 30 inches of DVH, you're going to end up with like 60. So you're going to be way out of, you know, sense out of proportion. So that's an important consideration, too. Think about that for a moment. Okay, we can make it an either or or we can make it DBH inches. I don't think I would make it just number of trees because then we're going to get we're going to get sticks as as it is right now. It's reflecting both.

It is reflecting both right now. Yeah. And absolutely the current ordinances and Nick and I will tell you gives us some time. Is that Is that fair to say? Fair to say. We need to take into account number nine also for this exercise because we're saying if we're including plants and palms now can we include that in the the my recommend my recommendation is that you would include uh pine trees in that I wouldn't include well let's be fair let's discriminate against the poor palm tree if you have a pool and you want palm trees.

What's Yeah, palm trees hold water, too. Have you ever have any of you ever taken a chainsaw to palm tree?

Forget it. That chain's coming back at you because the water's coming. They hold a lot of water. So again, you know, and going back to your comment, this isn't just an ordinance that I've taken from the storm water committee and said to myself, the only thing that's important here is storm water retention. That's not how I wrote this ordinance. I wrote that with that very much in my mind, but it's not the only thing. So, I think we we ought to allow replacement of trees, maybe broad leaves, pines, and palms. Count them all. These are all valuable trees. They're all part of the tree canopy. Uh I will tell you that, you know, where I grew up, pine trees are where most of the squirrels lived and most of the critters lived. Most of the nests were in the pine trees.

Oh. We're gonna we're gonna we're gonna have a special walle pine part. Just I'm telling you, brother. Yeah. Depends on how big your palm is. I have one that always has little. Oh, really? Hurts and squats. Okay. All right. So, I would make a suggestion that we do the or in the in the DBHS. That might help with your point, Melody, about you know the number of trees. It's too many. Yeah. You have some mature trees. So you have you have the option

if you have those mature trees, you have the number of inches. So then you don't have to worry about the number of trees. Definitely. So would your recommendation be to go only by DBH? I like the AOR. I I actually do like the order. I thought you I like giving maximum flexibility to meet the the intent of the ordinance.

And remember, number of trees are important, too. So, if you're only planting 3-in caliber tree, you are starting to build the next canopy, you know? Yeah. You know, if we just required everybody just to plant, let's let's just have some If I required everybody to plant 24 in oak trees and 24inch trees, we'd have a great canopy in about eight or nine years and we'd have that canopy for probably about 60 years, right? Where's the next canopy coming from? So, I like I like mixing the sizes. I like allowing the flexibility of the trees to be the number or the number of deviations. The ordinances that I've written were DBH interest singularly DBH and not member.

I'm I'm telling you that my recommendation for us is to do or either or. The ordinances that I've written in the past were strictly inch inch per inch. You take an 18inch oak tree out, you put in 18 inches of tree back on your property. It was real simple. Um, I wasn't gonna do this, but I'm going to do it today. Wasn't gonna do this, but I thought there might come a point in this conversation where they'd say, "What does a onepage tree or look like?" That's it right there. That's a onepage tree or right there this presentation.

I'm sorry. Could you email us this presentation after? Oh, sure. Certainly. Absolutely. With this included. With this included, please. Oh, really? Okay. She determines lots of lots that we could easily look at. Oh, I was just numbers and I was playing with basically the members of the planning commission that I could look up real quickly. That's why I said Melody, you have to have seven trees. So, it was heroin. Scott has to have five. Larry has to have six. Janette has to have three. I guess you're I have three four

and I don't really count because I have a half an acre or half of which is designated wetlands forest. So I've got about 55 trees and Mark if you look on the South Carolina forestry site they're recommended municipal tree ordinance is three pages. I don't want to put you on the straggler hold, but yeah. Well, we'll do our I would love a three-page ordinance and and and Nick would like a three-page ordinance and most people in this community would like a three-page ordinance because we all understand it. I'd like to see it consider

um since we're adding like palm trees and other things to the number nine of the other page. Oh, sorry about that. That's okay. Um, and I couldn't quite interject this, but we had this discussion earlier of whether a great myrtle was a bush or a tree. Okay, I love these trees personally and it's I think they're beautiful. I I will tell you that I I have one and it's I mean it's sizable, right? Is it a multi- stem? I don't know what that means. Okay. Three or four chunks coming out of it. Well, the base is solid and then it and it goes in.

But also at another property of mine, I have a huge tall crate myrtle that is creating shade. And I'm like that if if that's not a tree, I don't know what is. But that was our earlier discussion. I just um I love the tree and I just put my vote in for adding that to number is a great models. That's all I have.

So yeah, so I'm not here to provide you with a dendrology uh class, but the uh great myrtle is a member of the sh is a member of the shrub family. Palm is a member of the grass family. So, you know, we're we're I don't want to split hairs over what the genus of these trees are, but uh we welcome all families.

We that's that's the way I like to see it. That's what I like to hear from my commission because when you all brought up the palms and pine thing last night, somebody said, and it really kind of struck me, why are we why are we so hard on pines and palms here? Why are we just being that hard on when in fact you drive up that I drive every morning I take a different street up from ocean there's a lot of pine trees out there and they really form I would say a large component of our canopy and Nick and I always joke about this is that trees count we have trees that are existing under lock down and it doesn't matter if it's a pretty tree or an ugly tree it counts right because it's still doing its job. So anyway, u so we're going to do either or on the inches or number. Uh that gives I think maximum flexibility to the homeowner to meet the the spirit of the ordinance. Um I've got to ask this question because I'm getting a lot of potentially positive feedback and I want to make sure I'm reading the room. to continue to discuss the things I miss this evening, but would you like to see me come back with a three or four page ordinance?

I think we would like to um see what that looks like. Okay. Figure out whether or not it it works. I mean, obviously it creates more work for you, but I think No, I think what the popular misconception in this community is is that if it's not 15 pages, we're not saving enough trees. I can write a one-page ordinance that saves every tree in town if I need to, right?

Okay. So, I can do it a page. I can do two pages. So, let's do let's um continue down this list because this will help me formulate the next draft. And uh ultimately, when this gets to council, I got to tell you, I shudder to think taking a 14page open in to council because we're holding a workshop here. We're digging into the I call the nuts and bolts. Unless I unless we all agree to have a workshop at the council level, they're not going to have an opportunity to sort of like split the hairs here and pull things apart and do what we're doing right now. Um, so I would much rather take council a four-phase ordinance than a 14-page ordinance. Uh, because it's going to make our job easier. It's going to make your job easier. It's going to make their job easier. Right.

Let us see what it what it looks like and smells like. Yeah. So, we're eating up a lot of time here. We have a lot of Is there any one of the topics up there that any of the commissioners feels like we really need to address before we maybe open things up to public health? We got rid of nine, right? Yes. Do you have any problem with removing invasive species? They're listed in the ordinance. They're they're they're the trees that create tree problems for other trees. Quite honestly, the pest way from their auto.

Okay.

Um actually, I do have an issue about penalties. I did want to uh understand something that I have heard from uh lots of members of the community where we have um trees coming down over the weekend in an effort to I don't know whether they're related to um uh decisions that we're going to eventually put an addition on our property. We're going to, you know, whatever. But trees that appear to be healthy trees are coming down and they are are sizable enough trees that it's not the homeowner with the chainsaw. It's a tree removal company that's coming in and, you know, up there on the basket and all that kind of stuff. So, how do we maybe it's already in there and I missed it. How do we make sure that that tree removal company says to the homeowner ain't coming in to do that for you? that's not permissible in Surfside

or they'll find me so much in Surfside because somebody will take a picture of my truck when I'm, you know, taking down your tree and they'll submit it to the town and I'll get fined, but I don't think we have a mechanism for that. Do we? The weekend is, and we've talked about this, it won't in it won't end up in the ordinance. to probably end up in the guide is that if you see a tree coming down on the weekend, the first thing you should do is call the police. The police will go out there and literally stop them. Uh we've already talked to the police about doing that for us because we don't have a weekend enforcement officer. And when are you going to take a tree down if you're going to take it down illegally? Saturday morning at about 7 in the morning.

Yeah. whip that chainsaw up and get that tree down and then tomorrow have the tree grinding company come in and grind grind the stuff so I can't measure the the edge inches of loss on the site. Yeah, call the police. Yeah, but even if you picked up the phone and called the police, it's possible that the tree has already been severely damaged by the time the police arrive that we haven't really curtailed that kind of I don't have a good answer for you. The good answer is sure.

The first time we find that one tree company and they get whacked for $15,000 for taking down a landmark, you better believe the other tree companies in town are going to hear about it. They're going to know. So, the best way to do it is by active and fierce enforcement of what we have. That will be the determining. It's not going to be Nick or I riding around on a weekend on our spare time looking for people to cut trees down. That's not going to work. It's going to be active aggressive enforcement of what we have. Okay. So, the citizen uh sourcers need to um be calling the police and taking pictures.

I don't know if it's true or not. This was several years ago. There was a big tree coming down and my neighbors and I took the pictures and the guys were gone by the time the police got there and it was like, "Oh, well, we can't help you. The police have to see it. Have to have to witness it themselves. It's got to be an active. Your picture is no no use. No use. Standing there with the chainsaw into the trunk of the tree. It's got Yeah. They've got to see you actually illegally. So, is there an answer for There's no answer for what? No, really. No, but me and Mark discussed when I first got hired on. This was one of my questions of, you know, we leave at 5:00, 5:05, these guys can come in with a truck Sunday or by Monday morning at 8.

We don't know. Yeah, we don't know. they have no idea that you're so we discussed it and we haven't hammered it out because again I'm still four months in still learning was maybe I take off on Monday and the work is Saturday to keep these guys honest and and not let them know that I'm here so that's something that we'll circle back with now that you know because we're getting over the hump of winter we're going to start getting into spring more work's going to happen and um so that's something we'll circle back with and maybe twice some once a month to start and if it's becoming an issue maybe it's twice a month you know how do I know to call you Nick instead of a police department

that's something we're going to hammer out I mean that's something got to figure that out yeah and that's something that's something we would have to hammer out or you know I'll let the police know hey guys I'm working today and then you call the police department and then you send it to me because I'll have my work cell and yeah But it's something that we are searching around to keep people to not know that 505 that building's empty, man. Like get your saws out. Get your saws out. So that's something we we discussed and we'll circle back. But

I'm going to turn put this down so people can talk. And um if we could we take like a just a five minute break. I need to get some more water and Rob go to the bathroom. That's okay.

This conference will now be recorded.

Okay. Let's open it to uh public comment. Uh speakers are limited to five minutes uh a piece and speakers please approach the lectern when it looks like your turn to speak. Identify yourself and give your address. Sorry. No first come first serve. Um my name is Elizabeth Pellegrino. I think some of you knew my husband. Um, I have issues with four, number four, number nine. I'll start with nine. Can we put those back or

All right. And I live at 419 Second Avenue North. I have been a homeowner here for 20 years. I've lived here permanently for over 13. Um, number nine is my first issue. If you guys add in palmetto trees, it doesn't change the problem that we have right now because what they're doing is removing all the trees and only putting them palmettos. And I I know I love palmettos, but you should not be allowed to have only palmettos in your yard. Uh they are a native tree, but they're an understory tree. I have them in my yard. They come up from seed. So I don't plant them. They come up from seed. I love a pometer tree, but they cannot be the only tree in somebody's yard. and they're the easiest tree for a builder to put in. They don't require much space. They don't take up room in the yard. So, this comes to number four. Number four, my issue there is that we're not allowing room for trees. So, when you come in, I've watched it two a lot across the street from my house. One house sat there, beautiful big oak trees, chopped it all down, put two giant McMansions. They don't leave enough room for trees. They have far too much driveway. They never use it. They're never there. But it could park 12 cars and then they don't leave enough room for trees. They've got hardcaping. They've got pools um up the street from me. They put in this house that literally goes from every inch of the lot. And they took down every tree and there isn't room for a tree left. The only place for a tree would be there right away. Um, so I think number four needs to be issue that needs to be taken care of because you guys are have made the setbacks too small. Um, if we want trees, you got to get people ready for trees. Um, and then number nine, you just cannot include palmettos there because then we're just going to have a

whole town filled with palmettos. And that's that even though they are a native tree, they are not meant to be our only tree. They are meant to be mixed in. So, we need to make sure we have a mixed amount of trees. We can also cause by having too many trees, you cause a parasite and it'll wipe them all out. So, you've got to have a mix of trees. This guy seems like he knows what he's talking about, so I think we need to listen to what he's saying. Thank you.

My name is Phil Murdoch. 913A North Ocean Boulevard, Surfside Beach, South Carolina. Uh I partnered with Danny Osland, Osland Custom Homes. Uh mostly retired attorney, mostly retired attorney. Um but uh a couple things wanted to to to make a point of. The first is as a developer, I I always have and we get a lot of feedback from people when we're building. Surfside was not developed as a tree farm. It was developed to build houses. And I am always cognizant of the fact because I live here myself that trees are important because I certainly do not want to walk or or or walk my dog in a track home community, you know, that where everything was clearcut. That is not that that does destroy the the character of this town. So, I absolutely agree with having a tree ordinance, but I but I also ask that we be cognizant for the few lots that are left because most of our lots are already developed, you know, and for those people who are paying four, five, $600,000 for a tear down now because that that's where the market is at this point that we do allow them to build on those lots to the extent that that are that that is allowed, you know, and some of what we're talking about here is going to be a challenge to allow um when it comes to table 17.4.1 4.1. Um, if we're going to do something like what you've got here, there is a database that is, I think, very instructive for you guys, which is for the last 10 years, everything that has been built in this town, there's been a lot of stuff built in the last 10 years, has got an asbuilt survey. And that asbuilt survey

covers every tree, every pvious, impervious, concrete, you know, coverage, everything is on that asbuilt survey. I would highly recommend when it comes to finding an example, you know, look take these categories if we're going to do this and take some of the asbuilts for that that fits each one of these categories and look at it from a practical standpoint, you know, and gauge that for your minimum, you know, your hardcape, your soft scape, your pool, you know, you need to look at that because if we create something that suddenly you cannot not build what everybody else has built for the last 10 years, then you are prejudicing the people who are buying lots and buying tear downs at this point. So, I think that you you've got a database of information that you can make use of by taking those as builts and comparing them, you know, take take your you know, your lot that's 3,000 square foot. look at that as built and compare it to the minimum lot landscape, the minimum front yard landscape and see how that measures up. See if you can actually accomplish that build inside of the regulations they're talking about. That's a great way to cross check in my mind.

Based on your experience, do you have recommendations that you would want us to consider?

I we obviously that would take a lot longer than five minutes. Um but but certainly, you know, and and again, I I I compliment Mark and I compliment this committee for for going back and looking through this stuff because we need direction, you know, but at the same time, like I said, I I do think that that you guys really should take a look at those as built and compare them just to just to see because then you could always take that as build if you really want to know and go look at that house and see what that looks like. And if it looks like something, hey, that's kind of what I'm I'm thinking that I like, you know, then you should be able to accomplish it with inside, you know, 17.4.1. So, the other thing I was going to say when it comes to simplification, and I think this might be a great example under 179 where you got the tree protection during construction, I'm a big fan of military history. I love George Patton, you know, and he used to say, never tell somebody how to how to do something. Tell them what you want done and let them surprise you with their ingenuity. You know, when it comes to all of this, if you tell them they got to keep the tree, let them figure out how to keep the tree because some of the stuff that you got in here, you're not going to be able to build the actual house and accomplish some of the the tree protection mechanisms that you're requiring here. And then you're going to have poor Nick out there. Yeah, he's already got to deal with all the silt fence and everything else, but they're going to be running around and measuring the drip underneath the tree and trying to put a fence around it that got knocked down every time the bulldozer went went across it, you know, trying to deliver material. So, you like I said, maybe just put in there a fine for for the removal of that tree or if that tree dies because of something stupid that happened, but but let the contractor figure out how to save the tree, you know, as opposed to to going through, you know, half a page of telling them what all they need to do. So, that might be a great place you when it comes to

simplification just as an example. So, but again, thank you guys for for for looking at this. This is very important. It's very important to us. You It's impossible for us to design a house and tell somebody what they can and can't do if we have no idea what we can and can't do. So, thank y'all. Thank you. So, commissioners, you are not going to be questioning questioning the members of the public who come to comment. So uh uh commenters please feel free. You won't be put under the gun by us peppering you with question

north south and Hollywood. Um I just wanted to mention that also when you get a tree permit and I believe and missing a can back me up on this. You're actually supposed to display that. I know a long time ago I had to get a permit for a tree and I was told you need to make sure that that's seen by anybody driving by. When was the last time anybody seen a permit? When they drove by and somebody was cutting something down. It's same way with building. When you get a permit, you're supposed to display them. How many times have you drove around and seen people working and there's no permit? So, I'm not saying that's going to help anything, but at least it's going to help the public. If they drive by, they go, "Oh, okay. They have a permit." You know, that's all my two cents were.

Thank you.

Hi, everybody. My name is Dan Mosquitz. Uh, I don't live in Surfside. I live just outside of Surfside. Reason why I'm here today is because I design houses for a living. Do a lot of work for Phil and other builders. I probably designed maybe about 25 30 houses in Surfside. Um I know there's a lot of passions as far as the trees go. There are people some people want to save every single tree and you know some of the people I work for would like to wipe every tree off the map so they can build a house easier. All I care about is doing the best job to you know navigate my clients through the permitting process to design within compliance. I can't do that if the next guy that comes in can read the same code and interpret it a slightly different way or an entirely different way. So I realize this is a work in progress um but certain things like uh the mitigation paragraph which I think is 17-10. Now, I was chatting with Mark before kind of talking about this and we're talking about the inch replacement, how that might be a bit cumbersome, especially if you have a big trees you have to take out when it's in the footprint. And he said, "Oh, no. Well, you know, if it's in the footprint, if it's within that 10 ft of the footprint or driveway or pool, no mitigation is required." Okay, it doesn't indicate that to me anywhere in there the way that's written. Like I said, I know this is a work in progress, but those are the things I'll be looking for because he could leave in six months. know I can come and he can read that paragraph and it says no all trees you remove you have to replace inch by inch doesn't matter if it was in the footprint doesn't say that anymore these are things that I'd like to include specific language and I know we're trying to simplify this is kind of going the opposite way but maybe there's a way we could do that without adding pages more like paragraphs

that's about it that's all I have to say I just want to make my job I want to be consistent the way I can do my job and not get surprised because lots of these things happen under the radar for me too. You know, you guys will have these meetings, I'll know nothing about it, new guy will come in, you guys will have a new code, and I've already spent six months dealing with a client their dream home and all of a sudden, nope, this stuff isn't allowed anymore. And it's a huge headache. So, that's all I have to say. Thank you.

Thank you. Um, I would just like to say after listening to the developers, one of our problems I believe on the trees is that we do allow too much or not enough room. In other words, I guess the lot buildable lot size has went down since I've lived here, which has been 10 years. And a lot of homes that are being tore down are now being subdivided into two lots and there's two places being built where there used to only be one. And I think that if we went back to a bigger buildable lot size that it would be kind of a win-win except for you couldn't squeeze in all the houses that you possibly can. Uh across the street from my where I live, there was a a house there a long time ago and now there's two. The person that lives next lot to me, he actually has two lots. it probably could end up being subdivided into three. And I think it's just that is kind of the root of the problem in my opinion. I think the lot size, buildable lot size should be readressed and because it's going to continue to be a problem as the smaller homes get tore down, the big ones get built, you don't have enough room for trees. And like they say, they they don't have the room for them and it is a problem like

My name is Mark Watson and I live at 611 10th Avenue South Surfside Beach. Um, I am probably here as the voice of a quiet majority who really just want to be left the hell alone. Um, and and the problem is most of us want to be left alone so badly we're not even here. But I'm passionate about being left alone. Um, fundamentally to me, if if it were up to me, there would be no tree ordinance regulating uh owners of an existing residential property. To me, that's an oppressive thing that shouldn't even exist. Going into my yard and counting how many diameter inches I have to have of a tree is just fundamentally wrong to me. I I understand that we have one and understand that this is a workshop to try to figure out how to best do it. But if it were up to me, not only would we scrap this, but we'd have a pleasant conversation about how to repeal taking a 17-723.1 as far as going into my yard, my private yard, and telling me how many diameter inches of trees I have to have when I and how many permits I have to have in order to cut a tree and that sort of thing. But a tree is foliage. I happen to love trees. I really do and in a Christlike way. I love people who love truth. Uh but it's fundamentally wrong to me to infringe on my property rights like that. I really would hope you consider that. So every time we talk about going from uh going down to six inches, I cringe. And every time we we talk about um making sure that we have a certain amount of inches in my yard, I cringe. And I I I hope you would understand that there's a ton of people in this town that really just want to be left alone.

And I I would I would encourage you to consider that. I'll leave you with this. In my mind, a municipal government has a purpose. Let's make sure that we've got a safe a safe and clean beach. Maybe we could re maybe we could enforce the leash law that seems to just completely get ignored on the beach. Let's make sure we've got streets that are in good shape. Uh sidewalks that are in good shape. Let's make parks look good. Let's make sure we got strong fire and police. I'm for all of that. But municipal government should not be in the business at all of regulating how many diamond branches of tree I have in my yard. It absolutely should not. And we shouldn't because then we get in the business of having neighbors rat on each other, which is what I've heard. and um it just it just doesn't engender a society that really is uh is pleasant to me. So I would hope y'all would consider that. I appreciate the work you do. I appreciate all the work that you did. This is quite a work. Um I would love to see all that work scrapped. Um um but it doesn't change the fact that I think we can all agree to disagree. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. Hi, I'm John Hyatt. I'm your leazison, but I'm not here as a leazison. I'm here as a private citizen. I'd like to make just a few comments. Um, one is on the tree removal that's happening over the weekend. I was kind of appalled this summer. I saw like nine in my little neighborhood. And um perhaps it would be easier than have this gentleman take time on the weekends to just require the tree company to have a permit in hand. And if they don't, then they can be cited by the police or whoever. That might be a simple way to solve that. Also, I kind of a fan of lower penalties with escalation clauses for the people that make mistakes. I don't like them to be hurt too bad, but people that think they can just buy use their money to buy um exceptions, I think the tree ordinance should have escalations so that if they pay 15,000 for this tree, they pay 30 for the next and 45 for the next or something like that. Um I agree with what people say about the size of lots. Uh big houses on small lots is not a friend of canopies. It's also not a friend of children and we're a fan of the beach. We have very little room for kids to play around their houses, the new houses. We don't allow them to play in the streets by ordinance. Um, you know, we don't have basketball court in our town for them. Um, we want to be a family beach, but every time we see decisions get made, it seems like we move away from being a family beach. Um, I really like the idea of a tree fund where people can immediate u the removal of trees that might be prohibited or or

at least try to be protected. And then if we do allow that money to be spent to give trees to the public, then the public's planting those on their property and taking care of them. And it doesn't mean that John Adair and his public works department has to plan and take care of. I think that's a win-win for everybody. Um, I really like the idea that Mark suggested about worrying about the future canopy. You know, I love trees and I love canopies and I've spent a long time in my life in the wilderness and I had never really considered the fact of the responsibility to build a canopy for the future because the canopies we're living under are going to die at some point and we've got to make sure that there's canopies in the future. And I really like that idea and I hope that you will incorporate that into whatever you choose to do. Another thing that I'd like to point out is that sometimes people don't tell the truth about removing trees. They say, "I want to put a pool in and I want to put an addition on." They take down the tree and everybody, you know, says that's fine. Well, maybe we should require that addition of that pool within 18 months or else treat it as an illegal removal of the tree. Um, I think that's it. Thanks for listening.

Thank you.

Bill Canton, 1312 North Dogwood. Uh, Mark, if you can make the uh, thing four pages, please do. I was on council last hour on planning the last time we looked at it and it made my head spin trying to go through each section by each section by each section. We shouldn't do that. The lock size is a better way to go. Um, as far as businesses, they have a business license. that license ought to are restricted to where they can work unless they get a an approval from the uh uh planning and zoning to work on the weekend. They shouldn't be allowed to work on the weekend. You know, it's just something we should look at. Uh I mean can't open a bar all night long. We have restrictions on how long you can work. Why can't we do it? Because that is what you see. They come in on the weekend, they cut a tree down, they're gone. Nobody knows about it. And the only way to stop is find them. And once they pay a few fines, the world will get out. And every tree they cut down is a landmark tree because it's not there. So it was a landmark tree. You just tell them that it's going to be $15,000. That'll stop it. Um there is an ordinance that that kind of bothers me and that's the 10-ft rule. I've had trees close to my house and I had to pay somebody to come in and broom the roots so that the tree could stay there and not damage my house. It's not very expensive. In fact, it was cheaper than getting a uh arist to come write me a letter to cut a tree down. So, you know, it's it's it's doable. it does somebody has to be willing to say wait a minute you can probably just based on where it is now if it's right next to

the house you can't do that but if it's sitting 10 feet away those roots don't go into that house except in one area and you just trim them so it's something to look at keep it simple please uh because like I say my head spent when I was going through this first time and even the second time and the third time so thank you all for what you're doing. Uh we need I think we need a tree a strong tree ordinance so that we don't get clearcut and and thank you. Thank you,

Laura S. Watson and I also live at 611 Avenue Southite. And um one of my big concerns in this is you you know we say you say that it's not going to harm the individual but what you're really looking for is the developer who's coming in and clear cutting it's the clear cutting that you worried about the clear cutting that you're worried about and yet you don't and and yet your ordinance does still affect the individual homeowner. Um, we have a we have a tree in our front yard that has a hole in it and I get concerned that it's going to fall on somebody. It's it's we've got a round driveway. If somebody comes and visits, if that goes over while the car is there or while we have, you know, children playing in the yard, I get concerned about it. And because of the ordinance that's in place, I don't know if I can cut it or not. I don't know what it's going to cost me. That scares me. And then the second thing was if you have a big sick tree, but you take it down and it's, you know, 40 caliber inches and then you have to replace it with 40 caliber inches. Are you not been putting too many trees in that space for them to grow and get big and healthy? Because you've got to have enough space for the tree to get big in order for it to have enough sunshine and have enough light to get big. So that may be overcrowding if you do it quickly that way. And then the last thing was um I do love a canopy at times. I'm also a gardener. I love fresh tomatoes. And if you have

too many trees in your yard, you cannot grow fresh tomatoes. It doesn't work. And so I would like also to have the ability to take a few trees out of my yard so that I have space that I can have a garden where the sun will hit it enough so that I can put my tomatoes in my garden in my own yard. And these are things that this tree ordinance is getting in the way of me doing in my own yard. And so it is affecting me as a personal person single individual homeowner. And so maybe it's not, you know, I'm not wanting to go in and clear cut everything. I've got, you know, I've got pomemettos. I've got magnolia that I absolutely want to leave there. I've I've just got a couple of big trees. One of them looks sick to me and one of them is real close to my yard and or real close to my house. And then I would just like space to put some tomatoes in. And I don't know if I can. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi, my name is Ken Drazza. I live on 616 10th Avenue North. I'm also a member of the storm water committee. First, I'd like to say thank you for your kind comments about what the storm water committee has done in the past in regard to this proposed chapter 18 regular is that you've all seen. Also like to thank Mark for your kind comments also. We really appreciate that. So, um each member of the stormwater committee will be speaking today and we're going to focus on the draft revised chapter 17 regulations. I'm not going to comment on generally other people's comments. The members of the storm water um committee have worked on a separate proposed chapter 18 reg landscaping tree protection and canopy preservation tree regulations for several years. During that time we have the help of various surfside beach employees, tree experts, arborists, regional and state experts examined similar regulations throughout South Carolina, neighboring states and coastal areas along the east coast. became very knowledgeable of the topic and bring that knowledge to bear on the comments that will be made with today. We request that you all use proposed chapter 18 tree ordinance as a source of information since it direct directly addresses the town of Surfside Beach. The proposed chapter 18 regulation was presented to town council, the administration and is available on our our storm water um committee website. So today we're going to highlight some of the most critical concerns about the draft 17 revis 17 pre-eregulation, comment on specific sections, and end with closing comments. Bless you.

Storm Stormwater Committee will provide our written comments to the town council, the planning commission, the director, uh, and post it on our stormwater committee website and with the proposed chapter 18 tree ordinance. uh and that the tree canopy study that was conducted in 2024 the Surfside Beach Township can get that on the website to make sure it's utilized. Speaking to you today, um it is important to recognize that the community of Surfside Beach gets to decide on what we want our town to look like in the future. These decisions will impact our community for many decades ahead. Since large trees take decades to centuries to mature, we can preserve our unique community with our many mature and diverse trees that create a beautiful tree canopy where shade in the summer gives us cool temperatures where the birds and wildlife thrive. Flooding is reduced, storm water is filtered and diluted of pollutants that do enter the ocean and the air is made cleaner. all that being provided by our trees. Or we can be like many of our other coastal um waterfront communities uh where they have very few trees, they have this hot sunbaked homes, no wildlife and constantly address flooding issues. It's our choice. It is our choice. So we will begin with cons overarching concerns with the draft revised chapter 18 tree and landscape regulation. So number one using a lot size category over zone districts is a good idea. However, why are there so many lotsiz categories? The draft revised regulations are only changing the requirements with the current R1 zone category. Proposed chapter 18 recommendations changing the R1 zone category into two lotsiz

categories which would make it much easier for compliance and enforcement. Number two, in the draft revised chapter 17 regulation, the minimum number of trees will not change for zone R1 and R3, excuse me, R2 and R3 categories. Only R1 zone categories change with an increase in the number of trees. Secondly, the draft revised chapter 17 regulation reduced the minimum total diameter in all categories which will result in our largest trees most likely being lost. We have to look both at number of trees and diameter uh to really um get that balance correct. We recommend keeping the current total cumulative diameter with a 2-in increase with each additional tree required for lot size category. Please see the proposed chapter 18 regulation ordinance for this requirement more detailed information. Number three, the draft revised regulation must set a hierarchy for decision making to be crystal clear. It starts with tabing correct number of trees and the total cumulative diameter for a specific lot sites. Both criteria are required just as they are in the current chapter 17 regulation today. We suggest making a hierarchy list within this draft revised chapter 17 starting with the correct number of trees total accumulative time for a specific bot size. Number four, the draft revised chapter 17 regulation makes it simple having only two categories of trees protect protected trees and landmark trees designated by trunk sized. This has some issues. First, normally there are only a few tree species designated designated as landmark trees because of their

special attributes such as being native species, many other environmental benefits. The live oak is a good example. Please consider using the invocation landmark trees and proposed chapter 18 ordinance. Number five, palm and palmettos should not be designated as protected in landmark trees. These are really not technical trees. They're grasses. They grow as tall. They grow as tall in woody herbs. They do not have a tree canopy or provide shade much. Water absorption is low. Roads are shallow and does not offer erosion resistance, doesn't shelter wild. Designating palms and palmetto as trees in the draft dies chapter 17 tree regulation will enable the majority of the town's urban trees to become mainly palm and palmetto trees just to change our our natural environment. We suggest as we did in proposed chapter 18 words orders to count the maximum of two palm trees a total maximum of 12 in cumulative diameter with lotsiz cabin homeowners may plant as many

excuse me okay let me fix this one piece a few sentence you have to tell me about four during trade homeowners may plant as many palmetto or palm trees as they with only two plants uh will count and add 12 in. So we pass it off now um and yeah and then I won't lose a sentence. So you're going for a cumulative total between all of you. Yeah, we know. So you can start here. Yeah, I gota

I'll talk a little faster perhaps. I'm Dy Bud and I live at Forum 11, New York. Um, so we're going to comment on the sections that were provided in the thing you have tonight that we're looking at. There's some redundancy, but you know, okay, section 17.2 applicability. These these regulations should apply to all situations including development, re redevelopment, etc. To make the process crystal clear should questions. Section 173, administrative authority. We talk about town's development director. I've never heard of this position in Surfside. Um, whoever is accountable must be assigned by job position and title. Uh, number three, exemption for existing residential lots not engaged in tree activity. The first sentence reads, "No minimum tree coverage is required for existing home." This is unclear because many residents may mistakenly assume that their existing homes will not have to obtain any tree removal permit or follow any tree regulated regulations. The sentence is not necessary and probably should be removed because of yeah figured out the statement on the on about the fifth line starting with this exemption applies only to routine maintenance and does not ex um exempt the property owner. What is routine maintenance? Routine maintenance is unclear because it's not defined. The paragraph is inconsistent with section 17.3 item one. Section 17.3 item one. Coming up. Permit is not required. Exempt. The first paragraph, first sentence says tree removal, etc. Provided all tree removal work is reviewed by the town staff first. Well, this se whole section can't be an exemption. If you need someone to review the information, you are required to submit the tree work. A tree removal permit should be required for any tree work that requires review by the authorized staff at Surfside. Additionally, use of the wording like

town staff does not specifically identify the appropriate job title or person who isn't accountable. An accountable job titled person must be identified to ensure compliance is documented. Number one, dead, dying, or hazardous trees. Most residents are not qualified to adequately determine if a tree is dead or is in sign significant decline. Often town staff are not tree experts. So this paragraph is confusing. Again, the town's development director who makes hazard determinations is not known nor a known staff position. And we don't know how this person is qualified to determine hazards. If the director denies the determination, what is the appeal process? The town may require post removal photograph or verification. seems arbitrary and non-inforceable. I suggest removing the sentence. See, we're getting down to those four pages. Small and unprotected trees. Number two, small and unprotected trees under 6 in DBH. Measurement of the tree diameter, DBH, it which is 4 and 1/2 ft from the ground may result in a reduction of the resident's current total cumulative diameter. The current chapter 17 regulation has the measurement being made at two feet from the ground. Has this been technically addressed? The first bullet must state about the must state that the lot size cy requirements of both the tree number and total commum community cumulative diameter requirements must be satisfied. Second bullet the draft and that regulation designated for invasive or nuisance species to be eliminated since all trees have some value. If invasive or nuisive species section is not removed. It's just another level of complexity that most in the town are not experts in this knowledge and would be difficult to enforce. Property owners must notify the town. This is number three. Within five business days after emergency removal. Who is this person or position that they must notify? Is this exemption for all town council declared emergencies or any emergency a homeowner may account

encounter? Seems like a problem during major emergencies. And what is this supposed to accomplish? Proper removal will still occur unless pictures are required. Route number four, routine pruning and maintenance. The first bullet, normal pruning every 12 months. It seems like a loophole to allow for more pruning every year. It's not advisable. Section 178 lists exemptions for pruning pruning or triming branches at less than 6 in in diameter. So therefore, this is unnecessary and confusing. Second bullet, removal of deadwood under 4 inches in diameter is inconsistent with the rest of the draft revised regulation for trees or limbs which when it is which when it is stated as under 6 in residential yard maintenance. The paragraph is unclear. The exemption cannot be both removal of unprotected nuisance trees any size and then no exemption if identified as protected for landmark tree. How can this be enforced? Trees in specific locations. The 10-ft buffer rule should be eliminated since our setbacks in some easement areas and many driveways have trees 10 feet or less from these specified locations. The draft revising regulation allows all trees to be potentially cut down without a tree permit.

Times up. Okay. All right. The sentence that worked out. Point of order. Yeah, madam chairman. Um I in my opinion these are not public comments. This is a committee that pre-planned these statements to monopolize the public comics section. Um, no, that's why at the end, right, which they had stated that each of them were taking a section so that and and these are lengthy statements. I'm just my opinion, point of order, it's out of order. Yeah,

I think it's fine. They are members of the public. They obviously are maybe more educated in all of this than the rest of us. Uh but uh I think at a workshop that this is fine for them to comment. I I do think making written comments which um perhaps be better because um that uh allows I guess we'll focus on the citations there. I think we should allow it by the five minutes. You started.

Yeah. Hi, it's Evette Helier, 7th Avenue North, and I'm also a member of the Storm Water Committee. Thank you for your time. I know this is not the most fun thing to be doing. I wanted to pick up where my previous colleague left off on that uh paragraph six, be located in a specified location, we should modify to require actual visual structural problems that occur and then require a permit. the tree branches over a driveway. Pruning a tree 15 to 20 feet illinates the problem with the driveway and saves the mature tree. A section 17-3.2 tree permit required. The section is confusing with there being a section 17-5 permit requirements. Why are there two permit required sections? It it didn't quite make sense to us. Pruning of trim beyond routine maintenance. Routine maintenance again it's not it's not defined every 12 months for trimming or pruning means 25% of a tree could be eliminated every year which is not a healthy tree practice structural pruning copying and cutting damages trees a paragraph but the paragraph in the in the regulation allows for it to be made by permit in the definition section topping is a prohibitive practice so this seems to be a contradiction We would recommend instead of tree topping add tree dead wooding because that dead wooding is a practice that is in arbiculture that allows for the health of the tree to be enhanced. Construction or land disturbance impacts really needs to talk about the critical root zone. It's not defined. It doesn't speak about the survivability that trees need to have when their roots are impacted and construction sites and development sites. The number one reason

we lose trees is because the roots are not taken care of and protected. Replacement or mitigation plan approval. This is really a tough one for us because any activity that triggers removal of a protected landscape tree over 6 in DBH must include either or tree replacement or mitigation plan. It's really dependent on we think the correct number of trees and the total cumulative diameter um for the specific lot category. If this is meant to be a requirement, the the regulations must make it clear. Definition sections I could go into a lot of detail about. All I really want to get you'll get our written comments. So, what I really want to get down to is take advantage of the chapter 18 proposed tree ordinance that we put together because if you're going to have a tree ordinance, you should have tree definitions to make it clearer. Folks really don't know and that's a good way to educate. and the hand handout uh option marks recommended. We highly recommend that too. Any which way you can provide outreach and education information to the public. Make them aware. This town for 30 years had people who lived here and knew what it meant to save their trees to keep their legacy going. And we're getting an influx of a lot of people coming from a lot of places that want to not live in that kind of thought. But yet this is the the trees are the reason why people come here. So we really do have to find a balance. One of them is I will repeat homes are not trees. I love them. They enhance a property. They give us the tropical vibe but they don't produce the benefits that trees do. So go ahead plant as many palm trees as you like but

you should only be able to count two and up to 12 in. And then that way we can structure a balance to be ensuring that our tree canopy continues to be sustained. Are we done? 45 seconds.

5 seconds. So thank you. We will send you our our uh written comments because we do have a lot of detail. We will look forward to your next edition. I would really like to see that onepage ordinance. Fascinated by that. And uh if you have any questions, you need any help, please count us because we would like very much to see the the right decisions be made and we are a 37page ordinance that had everything comprehensive for the town of Surfside Beach. We completely understood that it would not become the ordinance. So thank you very much. Thank you. Chris Tammy 715 Cedar Drive. I'm not here to represent Congress. I'm here to represent myself. Uh it's hard work y'all and I appreciate it from a a citizen of this town. I and I believe me, I've went through with storm water committee for three years. It is hard and I hope by the time we get something to council that it will be something that council can live with, the citizens of this town can live with that that one page would be great. You know more than you if you the less is there the better it is but you got to have something if it takes 15 pages got to have something that people can enforce people can read and understand what they're reading and looking at. So with that, thank y'all and and people that worked for you.

Thank you. 13th Avenue North. I am not on the storm committee. I just want to say Mark,

please get it down to four pages. And in fact, I challenge you to get it to one page. Please, because the way it is now, I don't think a majority of citizens are going to even look at it. anybody wants to do tree work, they're going to look at that and they're gonna say, "I'm gonna do what I want to do." Or they're going to call you guys to say, "Can I do what I want to do?" Or neighbors going to call you guys and say, "Hey, my neighbor's doing this." And so, you know, we got to get it down. You know, it reminds me of the of the resume rule, right? One page resume because if it's longer than that, nobody's going to read it. So, one page, please.

Thank you. Do we have any others? Anyone else? Going once. Going twice. Okay, we will close the uh public comment. And uh I thank everyone for um coming and giving us your uh input. And uh I have a motion to adjourn. A motion. Somebody did second. Okay, we are adjourned. Thank you all very much. Thank you all and thank you Mark and Nick. This two.