Supervisors OK New Ordinance on Oak Removal : Development: The rules mean that builders can be forced to pay for destroying the trees.

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, expanding its power to require remedies for the loss of oak trees to development, Tuesday approved a measure under which builders can be forced to pay for trees they destroy instead of merely planting saplings that often die.

County foresters will determine whether developers must replace lost oaks with two saplings apiece, as was previously required, or pay for their destruction.

The money collected will form an oak forest trust fund to establish, enhance or maintain oak forests elsewhere in the county--in wild areas, in federal and state parks and in at least nine county parks.

Such a payment requirement has been called for by environmentalists as preferable to allowing builders to meet county permit requirements by squeezing oak saplings into on-site strips between buildings or alongside roadways, where they have difficulty surviving.

The supervisors also unanimously directed county officials to analyze a damning study submitted by the Topanga-Las Virgenes Resource Conservation District, titled “Where Have All the Oak Trees Gone?”

The study supported the payment alternative, saying the current county oak protection ordinance has failed.

David Gottlieb, vice president of the conservation district, said the study proved what he had long suspected: “People are getting away with destroying oak trees and ignoring their permits.”

The existing ordinance requires developers to replace downed trees with saplings on a two-for-one basis, but the study found many developers had not complied with that requirement. The study said that sometimes, after the development was completed, there was no room to plant oak saplings, or for those that were planted to develop.

The county oak tree law protects only the largest and most significant oak trees, known as heritage oaks, from destruction. However, county foresters and planners frequently also make it a condition of the building permit that developers redesign their projects to preserve the maximum number of trees.

In 20 development projects in the Santa Monica Mountains included in the conservation district study, problems noted by consultant Rosi Dagit ranged from trees dying because of improper planting locations to a failure to plant any new oaks four years into a project.

Dagit, who worked on the study for nearly a year, said she blames the vagueness of the oak tree ordinance, not the developers.

“There’s a lot of gray areas, and what I find disturbing is that, because it’s so gray, it’s very difficult for the developer to know whether he’s complying or not,” she said.

For instance, replacement oaks are supposed to survive for two years, under the county ordinance, but Dagit pointed out that there is no indication of “when that clock starts ticking.”

Dagit’s report also called for closure of a “county bureaucratic loop,” under which the conditions set for oak removal permits are largely drafted by county foresters but policed by county planners who lack tree expertise.

“It is dismally unclear who’s in charge of monitoring and enforcing,” Dagit said.

Supervisor Ed Edelman asked county officials to look into using foresters to enforce the oak tree ordinance.

Mike Wilkinson, the county’s deputy forester, said the payment amendment passed by the board Tuesday and many of the suggestions made by Dagit were ideas that foresters had pushed for when the original ordinance was drafted in 1982 and when it was revised in 1988.

“We didn’t get it then, but maybe the climate’s right now,” Wilkinson said.

Developer Lawrence Dinovitz, who is building the 207-house Stokes Canyon development in Calabasas Park, was cited by Dagit as one of the offenders. She said that he did not begin replacing oaks in the development until recently, even though he began grading and removing trees in 1986. She also said he had removed some trees before county foresters were able to inspect the site.

Dinovitz denied removing trees before the foresters’ visits and said he could not start planting until he finished grading. However, he said he believes the payment alternative approved Tuesday is a good idea.

“The value of the oak tree is much more than two 15-gallon oak trees,” he said. “A full-grown 10-inch oak tree, if bought at a nursery, would cost at least $2,500 and we should have to pay for that.”

Valuation of trees targeted for destruction will probably be based on a guide published by the International Society of Arboriculturists, Wilkinson said, although such details will be worked out during the next two months. That guide begins with a value of at least $1,400 for a 16-inch diameter tree and increases to $15,000 for older trees.

In response to public criticism and concerns within the forestry division, a county forestry review office was established in Pacoima in mid-July to try to improve the foresters’ ability to monitor oak replacement, Wilkinson said. An additional application permit fee of at least $155 was established to help pay for the foresters’ time.

Since then, Wilkinson said the foresters have focused on establishing stricter conditions in the oak tree permits, including limiting replacement planting to the most sheltered area of the project and requiring that replanting take place within a year of the oak’s removal.

Preserving Oak Forests

The Board of Supervisors approved a new oak tree ordinance that will create a fund to help maintain and establish oak forests throughout Los Angeles County, including nine county parks identified as oak habitat. Under an earlier ordinance, developers replaced oaks they felled for development by planting saplings on a two-to-one basis. The new ordinance would allowed developers to pay into the oak tree fund for each tree they remove. Below are the parks affected by the new ordinance.

1. Castaic Lake State Recreation Area, Castaic

2. Charmlee Natural Area County Park, Malibu

3. Kenneth Hahn State Recreation Area, Baldwin Hills

4. Eaton Canyon County Park/McCurdy Nature Center, Pasadena

5. Whittier Narrows Recreation Area, South El Monte

6. Santa Fe Dam Recreation Area, Azusa

7. Pete Schabarum Regional County Park, Rowland Heights

8. Frank G. Bonelli Regional County Park, San Dimas

9. Marshall Canyon County Park, La Verne

Source: Los Angeles County Parks and Recreation Department