What happened to the Tree Preservation Ordinance?
The original Tree Preservation ordinance of 1988 was drafted by a committee of citizens and was balanced to meet the needs of the community. It was not a particularly tough ordinance, but it did offer a small amount of protection for trees with a girth of over 10 inches. If a tree had to come down to make a project work, it could, but the process was not automatic. Basically, you could still cut down big trees: but you had to give them a fair trial first before you could kill them. In 1998, the Council modified the ordinance to permit more leeway for developments such as United Copper and Walgreens. In that version, the Council (myself included) allowed for the designation of certain Landmark trees, but stupidly overlooked a loophole that allowed for their complete replacement with smaller trees. This was a mistake which effectively ended any real tree preservation in Denton. Landmark trees were not automatically designated as such because of their size, but had to be specially designa
