The Suwannee Scribbler - Reconsidering trees II » Local News

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December 14, 2011

The Suwannee Scribbler - Reconsidering trees II

Jim Holmes Suwannee Democrat The Suwannee Democrat Wed Dec 14, 2011, 07:42 AM EST

Live Oak — OK, I admit it. I am somewhat of a tree hugger. In fact, my wife and I are crazy enough about trees that we spent five years of our lives looking for the perfect place to call home once we retired. It turned out to be here in Live Oak; a 21-acre tract covered in old Florida hardwood growth.

We became “tree huggers” because most of our lives were spent in Saint Lucie County, Florida, which years ago, when it was as rural as Suwannee County, was nearly as beautiful as this area - just flatter and with a lot more cabbage palms. Then Saint Lucie was “discovered!” The result was huge residential and commercial projects, where trees, no matter how old or beautiful, often had little value to developers wanting to maximize their investment. And so they were bulldozed and replaced with a sea of concrete and asphalt.

Understand, there are some beautifully landscaped condominiums and residential areas in Saint Lucie County today, but they are the work of man and have none of the majesty or natural uniqueness of what they replaced. And the county’s commercial strips look like every other commercial strip in Florida. In other words, they are stretches of land lacking anything approaching a real tree.

I tell you all this because of the beautiful oak trees that were recently bulldozed across from our Walmart, so as to make room for a new Zaxby’s fast food restaurant. Mind you, neither the restaurant’s developers nor their contractor did anything illegal in destroying those trees, because our county has NO TREE PROTECTION LAWS. The land clearing was simply carried out in a manner to minimize construction costs and maximize profits. On the other hand, while the landowner is blameless, we, the residents of this county, are not. You see, we long took the site for granted and left it unprotected. Well, shame on us.

Those trees are now gone forever and while I’m sure the owners of the new eatery will do everything they can to make their business attractive, I can guarantee you they won’t be able to come anywhere close to duplicating the natural beauty of what they destroyed.

Which brings me to my main point. It is time we, the county, rethought the importance of trees to our community. I know from personal experience, the presence of those oaks along US 129 near I-10 was among the things that caught our eye when we first visited. Sure, we were pleased to see a growing commercial corridor, but it was those beautiful trees nearby that proved the most memorable part of our initial visit.

The city of Live Oak has a so-called “Heritage Tree Ordinance.” Well, I suggest our county also needs one applicable to those areas zoned for commercial or residential development. I don’t know if the oaks at the Zaxby’s site were large enough to have qualified for protection under any reasonable landscape ordinance. I do know however there will be similar situations in the future and it just seems wise to have in place a law that grants protections to those trees we feel are worth preserving.

Now some property owners will respond, “Look, it’s my property and I should be able to do exactly what I want with it.” I agree, unless what you want to do is detrimental to our community as a whole. And in my opinion, losing any of this area’s heritage oaks qualifies as “detrimental.”

Jim lives in Live Oak.

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