11/12/2002 - Laserfiche WebLink

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• Kevin Doty, 411 Holly Road, President of the Pelican Island Audubon Society, commended staff and the Board for their work in this area The peninsula of Florida and Indian River County are very unique environments in terms of vegetation compared to dust about every other environment at the same latitude. Most other environments at this latitude are deserts. People do not realize that Florida is being deforested at the same or a larger rate than the Brazilian rain forest. We are stewards of this land and have a duty to protect it as much as we can for future generations. He urged approval of the ordinance. Richard Baker of the Florida Medical Entomology Laboratory thought the fines were still not high enough and stated that the ordinance does not protect `champion' trees. Indian River County has 2 "champion ' trees which are both under the 24 inch diameter criteria He also felt the 1 acre criteria should be lowered to 1/2 acre and objected to the fact that the State would be responsible for mangrove management. The State does not have enough personnel to closely monitor mangroves. He asked the Board to reject this proposal and make the regulations stronger. Peter Robinson, 315 Greytwig Road, felt there should be better solutions to the problems and noted especially the problems builders have with pine trees. He believed that, rather than trying to preserve pine trees, they should be removed and oak trees should be planted. The way this ordinance is written, the developer will not be able to clear properties but will have to wait for the builder to clear land for each house being built. He especially noted that there will be a great effect on affordable housing because of the extra monies being required to clear the land. He believed that all this is taking place because of a large, national developer who came in and cleared some property on Jungle Trail which he did not believe would happen with local developers who care about this county. The approval process for developing land is becoming more and more expensive and when you add the cost of a tree survey, you are pricing housing out of the low-cost market. It is especially difficult to develop property which needs to be filled as this puts an extra burden on the existing trees which usually cannot survive having 3 feet of dirt piled around them. Debb Robinson of Laurel Homes then brought up the subject of raising the road elevation and noted that houses must then be 18 inches above the crown of the road. You cannot fill land to that extent and save the existing trees. She believed that logic would indicate that NOVEMBER 12, 2002 65 Lit • 6'