Charleston County Council gave first approval Jan. 30 to amend an existing ordinance that would remove some regulations against tree removal on county road and drainage project sites
The council voted 5-4 to pass the measure. Those for it were council members Joe Boykin, Jenny Honeycutt, Brantley Moody, Teddie Pryor and Herb Sass, the chairman. Opposed were council members Henry Darby, Larry Kobrovsky, Kylon Middleton and Robert Wehrman.
Kobrovsky said the proposal will erode citizen rights and hurt the ecosystem.
“Every day we see things disappear in the landscape from what we love about this place,” Kobrovsky said. “And for many decades I’ve lived here, watching it slowly happen. I think I speak for most people when I say this is another step in that direction.”
Under current rules, the county’s Board of Zoning Appeals (BZA) oversees the county’s ability to cut trees and other regulations on road and drainage projects. Sass says those regulations cause these projects to take months longer than necessary.
“The city of Charleston, the town of Mount Pleasant, the Highway Department — they don’t have to go through a BZA to get a tree taken out of a drainage ditch or right-of-way,” he said. “We would like to have that same right.”
The proposed amendment would give the county the ability to vote directly on tree removal in cases like these, but some say it takes power away from community members who participate in public hearings during BZA meetings.
“They said public comment is enough for people, but only 15 people can speak, and they’re limited to two minutes. People have all kinds of concerns that come before every meeting, so that really limits the impact tremendously. It’s not remotely the same.”
Now, the proposed amendments to the ordinance need to pass two more readings to go into effect, and Kobrovsky said that gives the public some opportunity to change the outcome.
“The public needs to be heard about this,” he said. “They only need to change the mind of one person. Contact them. Come to the meetings. Use the limited public comment we have.”
A noticeable pattern
Slashing tree-cutting protections is a part of a concerning trend, Kobrovsky said.
“Nothing has changed in local or state law to give these projects a different context from years prior to now,” he said. “What has changed is developmental pressure. This is the next step for developers — expanding outward into North Charleston and Mount Pleasant — and that’s what’s driving all of this, and it’s unacceptable.
“It didn’t come up at the meeting, but the county is moving to build an eight-story building in a flood zone on Morrison Drive.”
And development projects like these can have negative impacts on the local environment, advocacy groups said. The grand oaks that line several of Charleston County’s roadways can soak up between 4,000 and 11,000 gallons of water per year, according to the Coastal Conservation League (CCL).
“Council says trees shouldn’t get in the way of drainage projects, but that’s totally backwards,” the CCL’s communities and transportation project manager Emma Berry told the Charleston City Paper in a November report. “If we had more trees, maybe we wouldn’t have so many drainage problems.”
Sass, however, said existing regulations to replace removed trees would prevent ecological damage. When a tree is removed, a number of trees must be replanted elsewhere to make up for that removal. “That’s a standard we use now, and we’re more than fine with that,” he said.
“We don’t anticipate this is going to be a lot,” he added. “That’s not the intent of this. I would not vote for that. We’re not taking down any tree canopies. We understand how valuable a tree is.”
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