moratorium on new development in Fayetteville may not

have been what local developers had in mind when they

asked City Council to delay action on a proposed new tree

protection ordinance.

But it's

what they got. Council Monday enacted a renewable 30-day

moratorium on any new building projects, and likewise

tabled the proposed tree ordinance for 30 days. And

because council's regular third Monday meeting in

November falls on the 15th, the law won't come up for a

vote until Dec. 6 unless the group votes to remove it

from the table.

A highly

restrictive development ordinance for the city's main

highway corridors already exists, developer Bob Rolader

pointed out. He said he fears that adding new tree

preservation restrictions will make it impossible to

build in Fayetteville.

"Look

at what you've already created with the corridor overlays

and let's see if the buildings even fit," Rolader

said during a City Council work session last week.

The tree

protection ordinance, recommended by the city Planning

Commission and staff, was on the council agenda for

action Monday, but the group decided to delay action so a

committee of city leaders and developers can study the

proposed law.

Rolader

suggested using an actual development site in the city as

a test case.

Council

members said they're not opposed to that idea, as long as

taxpayer money isn't spent on the testing, but in the

meantime they don't want more trees destroyed in

development until a new ordinance is in place.

"It

only takes a couple of minutes with a bulldozer to knock

a tree down," said Councilman Al Hovey-King.

"I

suggest we have a moratorium on development until we

address this," said Councilman Kenneth Steele.

The

proposed ordinance, similar to one being studied by the

Fayette County Planning Commission, is designed to

encourage developers to save existing trees rather than

stripping construction sites and then replacing large,

old trees with young, smaller ones.

Under the

law, existing trees would carry twice as much weight as

new ones in determining whether a developer has met the

requirement that each development have at least 100

"tree density units" per acre. The law would

provide rules for digging and grading around the

preserved trees to prevent their being damaged in

construction.

Developers

also are required to identify "stands" of trees

that can be preserved together. A stand is defined as a

group of trees that have grown up together and therefore

depend on each other.

"If

you thin it out and just save all the oaks or all the

sycamore trees and remove all the others, then you have

tall, spindly trees that, left on their own, look out of

place," said Maurice Ungaro, city planner, during

recent discussions of the Planning Commission.

In addition

to Rolader, developers Randy Hayes and Mike Rosetti

addressed their concerns about the law during last week's

work session.

"It's

going to have the effect of making the land with no trees

more valuable than the land with trees," said

Rosetti.

"The

penalty portion is quite severe," said Hayes, adding

that the city already can stop work on a construction

site if the developer breaks the rules, and that's the

most effective remedy.

"We

don't make much progress in resolving the situations with

the current remedy," countered Mayor Mike Wheat.

City

manager Mike Bryant said staff members will meet with a

designer sometime this week to set up a test case to

determine how the proposed law would affect an actual

development.

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