Tall-Tree Law Is Cut Down to Size

This city is facing something of a tree crisis.

It started with a neighborhood dispute that turned up a little-known city law that says trees used as a hedge on the perimeters of a person’s land must be no taller than six feet.

That came as news to Councilman Don MacAllister, who, at Monday’s City Council meeting, said he has “trees taller than that all around my property. If we enforced that ordinance strictly, we’d have to cut down trees all over the city.”

At MacAllister’s insistence, the council unanimously passed a resolution putting a moratorium on the tree-height-limit law for 30 days. “I’m going to do everything I can to get the ordinance changed,” MacAllister said later.

City staff concede that hundreds of property owners have evergreens taller than six feet that screen back and side yards. The staff also conceded that many trees would die if chopped down to a stubby six feet.

“This is an interesting case,” said Michael Gregory, a land-use technician for city government. “I don’t think we’ve ever had to enforce this before, and this case could go either way. I think that’s why the City Council wanted some time to study it.”

The “case” Gregory refers to involves the home of Jerri and Glen Hesprich at 6971 Garden Circle. The Hesprich home has 105 mature Italian cypress trees, ranging from 20 to 30 feet tall, planted at the edge of the back and side yards.

A complaint was lodged about the Hesprichs’ trees after the couple did not agree to a neighbor’s plan for a new block-wall fence.

“Because of privacy I can’t give names, but it was a citizen’s complaint that we received about the trees,” Gregory said.

On Nov. 16, the Hesprichs received a “notice of violation” from the city’s Department of Community Development. That notice ordered them to top all their cypress trees “to a maximum of six feet” within 14 days.

A professional tree expert, hired by the Hesprichs, inspected the trees and told them that cutting the trees to six feet would kill them.

With only two weeks to save the trees, the couple decided to take their case to the City Council.

“I’d heard that a citizen could speak to the council,” Jerri Hesprich said. “Lots of people, though, told me it would be a waste of time, and that nothing would come of it.”

But when she made her brief speech to the council, action came quickly. MacAllister said he was appalled that a city law could threaten so many trees.

“Do you realize how many trees would be involved if we strictly enforced this ordinance?” MacAllister said during the meeting. Later in the week, MacAllister said he had driven down Golden West Street “and I’d say that 50% of the houses I drove by have cypress trees (taller than six feet) on the back property lines. If the city tried to enforce the ordinance against all those trees, well, I’d have to laugh.”

The ordinance in question, passed in July, 1988, states that “fences, walls or hedges a maximum of six feet in height may be located on the property line in required side and rear yards. . . .”

Gregory, of the city’s land-use staff, said Wednesday the city considers “trees as hedges when they are bunched together for that purpose.”

City Administrator Paul Cook said this week that “unless a tree is drooping down onto someone’s property or obstructing passage on a sidewalk, it’s no problem.”

Jerri Hesprich on Wednesday said she was greatly encouraged by the City Council’s response to her plea.

“People say you can’t fight City Hall, but I found that City Hall will help you,” she said. “The system works. I am very grateful.”