6 • The Southwest Portland Post
N EW S
M arch 2011
City Council considers new tree planting and cutting regulations
By Lee Perlman
The Southwest Portland Post
The Portland City Council last month
took up the Citywide Tree Ordinance,
an attempt to rewrite, unify and stream-
line all regulations relating to the plant-
ing, cutting and pruning of trees on all
public and private property.
For southwest Portland activists, it
was the culmination of years of work.
The Tree Project has been ongoing for
three years. Planner Joe Zehnder said it
was inspired by complaints about the
current code.
Project manager Roberta Jortner said
that current rules, shared by five dif-
ferent bureaus, are “inconsistent, with
noticeable gaps.”
Among other things, the Project’s rec-
ommendations call for a single point of
public contact, a user-friendly manual,
and a hotline for reporting violations.
Regarding this last point, Jortner
touched off a debate when she sug-
gested that someone seeing illegal tree
cutting on weekends should call 911.
Commissioners Amanda Fritz and
Randy Leonard quickly said this would
be an inappropriate use of this system.
Commissioner Dan Saltzman wasn’t
so sure. “I can see where 911 is appro-
priate,” he said. “I’m less interested in
penalizing people for illegal tree cutting
than in preventing it in the first place.”
Portland Planning and Sustainability
Commission chair Don Hanson, himself
a landscape architect, said current tree
regulations are “a mess, hard to find
and inconsistent.”
During the course of hearings the
commission heard complaints that the
proposed rules go too far and not far
enough, he said. While saying, “I won’t
pretend we resolved all the details,” he
said he found the end results “rational,
understandable and clear.”
Michael McCloskey, a southwest resi-
dent and member of the Urban Forestry
Commission, called for maintaining
trees in unimproved right of ways that
are “well-established.” In southwest,
“It’s sometimes hard to tell where City
property ends and private property
begins,” he said.
Greg Schifsky, longtime Bridlemile
community activist, said, “I hope you
support this all the way.” He recalled
a weekend incident in 1967 when, “I
looked at the hillside and there were no
trees – it was as if they were denuded
by an occupying power. With enact-
ment of this, we can ensure that doesn’t
happen. Paint yourself green and really
mean it.”
Fritz told Schifsky, “We wouldn’t be
here tonight considering this without
your advocacy.”
Fritz had similar praise for another
southwest advocate, Margo Barnett;
both women helped create Holly Farm
Park. “We’ve been urging the City
to revise the code for years,” Barnett
said. “I’m very pleased with the fact
that this includes many of our recom-
mendations.”
The Project has been “a very long
process and a balancing act.” The au-
thors had tried to be flexible, and that
had increased the recommendations’
complexity, Barnett said. She did regret
that the act did not provide relief for
owners whose sidewalks are damaged
by tree roots, especially the low-income.
The proposal did have critics. South-
west homeowner Wayne Person criti-
cized new regulations governing tree
cutting on developed single-family
home sites.
Person was denied a permit to cut
down a dangerous tree, he said, and
its branches fell “through my roof,
through my garage window, within
ten feet of me while I was holding my
grand-daughter. You should allow
homeowners to cut their own trees
when appropriate.”
Another southwest homeowner,
planner Mark Dane, said, “Infill is the
greenest form of development,” and
the proposals will mean “more con-
sultants, bureaucratic costs, and time.
Every time we try to simplify the code
it gets thicker.”
Developer Justin Wood, while prais-
ing the intent of the Project, said the end
result is “still fairly complicated, and
falls too heavily on the development
community.”
Wood recommended exempting
lots of 5,000 square feet or less from
regulation. (The proposals put the
minimum at 3,000 square feet.) Other
homebuilders called for other changes,
such as exempting developments with
80 percent lot coverage (the proposal
would exempt those with 90 percent
coverage).
Builder John Fiocchi, said, “I’m just
about ready to move out of the city.”
The City already charges $33,000 in
total fees per unit, he said, and of this
$8,500 pertains to trees.
Regulation of private property is in-
appropriate, Fiocchi said; “This is my
private property, I own it, I bought it,
I pay taxes on it.” Turning to Council
he said, “You guys are all smart, look
into this more.”
In contrast Nancy Seton, land use
chair of the Southwest Hills Residential
League, said, “We’re very pleased to see
the changes we asked for. Without trees
our homes would be sliding down the
slope to Goose Hollow or Highway 26.”
According to Seton, “We need to
support tree preservation on develop-
able and non-developable land. We
need more consistent enforcement of
stream setbacks. We need to preserve
the canopy, and to do that we need a
code that works for, not against, this
objective.”
John Gibbon, Southwest Neighbor-
hoods, Inc. land use chair, said that tree
preservation on private property is a
matter of public interest, especially in
landslide-prone areas.
Gibbon said in his own Quail Park
subdivision there is a requirement that
every tree cut must be replaced. “It’s
not inexpensive, but it’s worthwhile.”
Simone Goldfedder of Southwest
Hills said she “strongly supported” the
proposal, and said it “provides many
options to approach a (development)
site instead of a proscriptive, one-size-
fits-all approach.
“This doesn’t limit an owner’s right
to develop; it only emphasizes the im-
portance of tree preservation.”
Goldfedder added, “It’s clear much
of the canopy is in the more affluent
neighborhoods, and loss of canopy
affects the form and health of neigh-
borhoods.”
Bob Sallinger of the Portland Audu-
bon Society called for stronger regu-
(Continued on Page 7)
PoSt a to Z BuSINESS CaRD DIRECtoRy 503-244-6933
PRECISION HOME REPAIR
& DRYWALL
JON A. GOSCH
Phone: 503-643-3517
Cell: 503-781-8792
E-mail: precision17@frontier.com
Quality work at affordable rates!
Mention this ad and receive 10% off your next job!
Licensed฀•฀Bonded฀•฀Insured฀•฀CCB฀#77073