Wednesday, April 3, 2002
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Wednesday, April 3, 2002 |
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Who owns a tree? By SALLIES
SATTERTHWAITE You can no more own a tree than hold the deed to a river or engrave your name upon a cloud. Many years ago, when Peachtree City was young and so were we, a friend called, dismayed over what was happening at the house behind hers. A new neighbor had just moved in, and was cutting down trees on what had been a large, densely treed lot. They were mostly pines, never valued here in the South except for pulp, and the new neighbor had his heart set on a tennis court. But for my friend, it was the end of the shady back corner of her own yard, the annihilation of bird habitat, and the loss of privacy. In less than five years, the new neighbor was gone. The current owners of the house are not tennis players, and that court is now a scab of crumbling asphalt. Needless to say, in 30 years, the trees have not come back. Similarly, we've seen pecan orchards leveled for shopping centers which in a few years are abandoned as newer malls spread farther from town, drawing a town's vitality with them. Where slow-growing hardwoods had reached for the sun, now empty buildings and parking lots mock corporate ambition, monuments to greed. A neighbor of ours removed most of the trees in her backyard to give her children more room to play. She was indignant when a developer leveled the little hardwood forest that backed up to her property, and built houses in full view of her kitchen window. The neighbor has since moved, of course, leaving her stripped backyard for someone else to deal with. We know builders who cared enough to go to great effort to save every tree they possibly could, to the delight of the neighborhood until the new homeowner came in and cut them down. They'll probably be gone soon, the new folks. It's a sure thing the trees won't be back. All this to say I was troubled by a recent column in the Friday Review, railing against a proposed ordinance that would keep Peachtree City homeowners from wanton destruction
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