With rapid development through the city, Ridgefield officials are taking steps to ensure historic trees won’t be knocked down.
City councilors instructed planning staffers to start looking into establishing a heritage tree ordinance in the city last year. Discussions on the ordinance started in May, and city councilors are expected to vote on the ordinance sometime in early- to mid-October.
“There’s a lot of new development out here,” said Jeff Niten, community development director for the city. “We want to make sure unique trees and environmental assets aren’t destroyed by new development.”
The new ordinance would create an inventory of heritage trees through two ways. During the review process for new development, city officials will be able to designate trees as heritage trees. The other way will be through a nomination process, in which city agencies or residents can nominate a tree for the designation, and city councilors will review the nomination and decide.
To accept a tree as a heritage tree, it must meet one of more of the following conditions:
- It has a diameter at breast height of 36 inches or greater.
- It has a distinctive size, shape or location, or is of a distinctive species or age.
- It possesses exceptional beauty.
- It is distinctive due to a functional or aesthetic relationship to a natural resource, such as trees along stream banks or ridge lines.
- It has a documented association with a historical figure, property or event.
“Some of the criteria is objective and some are more subjective,” Niten said.
The ordinance also allows for a heritage grove, so long as the grove is:
- of a rare or unusual nature containing trees that are distinctive due to size, shape, species or age
- distinctive due to a functional or aesthetic relationship to a natural resource
- associated with a historical figure, property or event
If the council votes for the ordinance, Niten said it could be in place before the end of the year, and the council could have their first hearing on designating heritage trees sometime in January.
“It’s currently designed as rolling program,” Niten said. “Depending on what the inventory looks like, that can be changed to a nomination period, if council wanted to look at that in, say, just the spring or fall.”
The city has a few trees in mind that could end up in the heritage tree inventory already. One is a giant sequoia at Cathy and Scott Hughes’ home on North Main Avenue. They bought the home 25 years ago. It was built in 1874, and the assumption is the tree was planted sometime around then, according to Scott Hughes, who owns Ridgefield Hardware and is a Port of Ridgefield commissioner. Hughes hopes the council votes to set up the heritage tree ordinance.
“There are certain trees that would be a loss to the community if they were taken down,” he said. “Trees like that are a community treasure.”
However, some Ridgefield residents told the council they think the ordinance is too late, as some older trees in the city have already been knocked down, specifically, near the Hillhurst Highlands development. Niten said city officials heard from residents last year about creating a way to protect trees.
At public hearings for the heritage tree ordinance, multiple residents got up and told the councilors that the ordinance is coming too late after what happened at the Hillhurst development.
Niten said city officials worked with a developer to save two other trees at a different development.
“There is a lot of concern among people who have lived here for a while with all the development, they see a lot of trees coming down,” he said. “They want to know what we’re doing to protect the trees.”
