Council Approves Building Ban as Penalty for Illegal Cutting of Oaks

To protect California live oaks and other oak trees from overzealous builders, the Los Angeles City Council adopted a measure Friday that could impose a 10-year ban on development of property where oaks have been illegally destroyed.

The law, adopted on a 12-0 vote without debate, is stricter and contains harsher penalties than current ordinances regulating the California live oak and its lesser known cousins, including the Valley oak.

“There’s no other law anywhere near it--it’s extremely tough,” said Anson Burlingame, a former builder who has lobbied City Hall to improve protections for oak trees. “But it’s time to get tough.”

Under existing city law, destroying a California live oak or any of several other oak species without a city permit is a misdemeanor punishable by a fine of $1,000 and a jail sentence of up to six months. To get a permit, developers must agree to replace each oak they destroy with two new oak trees.

But some, including Burlingame and Councilman Hal Bernson, have complained the punishment has been too light.

The law, which requires Mayor Tom Bradley’s signature to take effect, was largely the handiwork of Bernson, who first introduced it in 1985. “I want developers to know if they violate the law, their land will lie fallow for 10 years,” Bernson has said.

The ordinance gives city building and safety officials the option of revoking a building permit for a maximum of 10 years or denying an application for a new permit for up to 10 years on any property on which a live oak has been illegally destroyed.

The length of time the sanctions are applied would depend on the age and size of the destroyed trees, the numbers killed and prior violations, Deputy City Atty. Henry G. Morris said. The five-member city Building and Safety Commission will determine the penalties.

Any development ban on a property will also affect future owners. “This prohibition goes with the land,” Bernson said. “No one’s going to want to buy property that’s got that kind of prohibition on it.”

The law applies to oaks larger than eight inches in diameter growing on properties larger than one acre. The scrub oak is not protected.

Burlingame and Gordon Murley, head of the Federation of Hillside and Canyon Assns., which represents homeowners in or near the Santa Monica Mountains, have claimed that as many as 1,000 live oaks have been destroyed illegally since the city’s law was passed in 1980.

The city’s biggest prosecution under the oak tree law occurred in 1986 when Jasin Co., an Encino firm, pleaded guilty to destroying four oaks and agreed to pay $31,000 to the city.