After seeing the number of trees on the North Fork diminish, Riverhead and Southold towns are taking steps to get control over the fate of residential parcels where trees remain.
Both towns have debated for several years how to preserve the canopy across the area but until recently those efforts remained on a back burner. Crafting comprehensive rules for uprooting or removing trees is a challenge that could determine the aesthetics and ecological preservation of this bucolic area of Long Island for decades. Riverhead and Southold are among the last remaining East End towns that have not taken steps to preserve wooded landscapes in residential areas.
“We can look at what other towns are doing to see how we can write our code.” George Bartunek, a long-time environmental advocate and member of the Riverhead Environmental Advisory Committee, said at a November meeting with Riverhead Councilwoman Denise Merrifield. Greenport and Southampton have codes forbidding clear cutting; Southold restricts destruction of trees on commercial properties.
Legislating what happens on a wooded property has been a long time coming for Riverhead. There is a mention of establishing a tree code along Sound Avenue as early as the 2003 comprehensive plan.
“Is the new code only for homeowners? What about subdivisions and new commercial or industrial development?,” Committee member Barbara Blass said at the November meeting. “How do we differentiate between cutting down trees and clear cutting? And how many lots in Riverhead are still wooded?”
The consensus was to have the Town Planning department attend the next Environmental Committee meeting and present a plan about how the new code would be enforced, which committee member Mark Haubner said is “encouraging because we’ve been focusing on this for the last eight years ever since the committee was formed.”
Mr. Bartunek pointed out the town can have development as well as preservation. “It all depends if you have a town board that’s willing to listen to look at both sides of the story.”
In November, Southold Town Board member Jill Doherty, liaison to the town’s Tree Committee, presented a 15-page proposed tree code. “Trees stabilize the soil and control water pollution by preventing soil erosion and flooding, reduce air pollution, provide oxygen, yield advantageous microclimatic effects, temper noise,” the draft code states. “Indiscriminate removal of trees causes deprivation of these benefits and the Town’s ecological systems.”
Over the past 10 years, with an influx of new residents, many naturally wooded areas in Riverhead and Southold have been replaced by lawns and neither town has a code to prevent clear-cutting by homeowners. “So that means people can do whatever they want. The civics are pressuring us and neighbors are freaking out, telling me they’re clearing the property and [asking] how can we stop them,” Ms. Doherty said. She pointed out that on Nassau Point, millions of dollars are being spent clearing properties. “Trees are the character of that peninsula, and the area could erode. Trees protect the land and they’re also a habitat for animals.”
Southold officials drafted a tree code a few years ago — but the COVID-19 outbreak shelved the initiative, according to Ms. Doherty. “We’ve tweaked that draft with the town attorney, and I still want to pare it down a little,” she said. “Then it goes to planning, zoning, [and] the codes committee, and a public hearing has to take place — so it could still take a while to get to the final draft.”
The Southold Town Board held a zoom session after the November meeting to allow for public input. “I urge you to work on this quickly because every week, we see another area clear cut and trees take a long time to grow,” Southold resident Anne Murray said.
Ms. Doherty said tree code enforcement will probably be the responsibility of the building department and the town attorney. “We have to work that out,” Ms. Doherty said. “I anticipate we’ll get calls from neighbors saying they’re cutting trees down. People can submit complaints on our website. We can use Google Earth to see if trees were cut down.”
A community organizer in Southold, Margaret Steinbugler, said a law to preserve trees is something the community has been calling for. “The value of the code depends on the community understanding that the code depends on the town enforcing it. There’s a great need for awareness … because once a tree is cut down, you can’t replace it.”
A draft of the new tree code was presented to the code committee in early December at Town Hall and several representatives of local landscaping companies were in attendance. Supervisor Al Krupski said he read through the document several times. “We have to make sure we’re clear about clearing brush versus trees,” he said. “We need a lot of input on this, and it’s critical that we take action.”
Ms. Doherty agreed. “We’ve been talking about this for years and years. Let’s make it simple: We’re not trying to burden the business community.” She added that officials will be rewording some of the draft to reflect concerns from committee members, area residents and local businesses.
“We have to have rules. Everyone realizes we have to do something. It’s common sense to make people think about clear cutting properties,” she said. But crafting an agreement and getting approval from the various town departments will probably take months.
Ms. Doherty is hoping to have a tree code in place before spring construction picks up. The next meeting on the topic will take place sometime in January. “To me, it’s more to make people stop and think about how important trees are,” Ms. Doherty said. “It’s the cumulative effect. If everyone cut down trees, it would change the character of the neighborhood.”