The town has been drawn into disputes between neighbors about trees on their private properties, Parks Recreation & Cultural Resources Department Director Ruben Wall told the Wake Forest mayor and commissioners Tuesday night, and it has been Jennifer Rall, the town’s Urban Forest Coordinator.
To forestall future problems and to bring the language up to date, Rall has revised the town’s ordinance about dead or diseased tree removal on private property to deal with the treatment or removal of trees on private property.
“I’m against the town going on private property and telling people they have to take a tree down,” Commissioner Greg Harrington said. Rall responded by saying the town has the responsibility of asking a property owner to remove a limb or a tree or to treat the tree for a disease if there is a potential hazard or if there is a risk to people on sidewalks or greenways.
Commissioner Margaret Stinnett had a different slant, saying she wanted the rewritten ordinance to say that I can hire an arborist for a tree risk assessment. If that assessment says the tree will live for another ten or twenty years, “then I don’t have to cut my tree down and it’s not the town’s responsibility any more.”
Rall demurred to a degree, saying she has researched property issues and property owners have a duty to maintain the trees on their property and treat them for disease or insect infestation and the town has the right to treat the tree and charge the cost back to the property owner. In other instances, Rall said, the limb over a property line or a public right-of-way could simply be trimmed back.
Commissioner Brian Pate agreed the ordinance needs to be rewritten “to get us out of it,” and for the safety of town residents, recalling “a situation a couple years ago when a tree fell and killed someone during a storm.”
Rall will return at the board’s Nov. 1 work session with wording about a second opinion.
In other actions, the commissioners approved all four planning items by different margins. Those were:
— The Woodlands, a 99-unit townhouse subdivision in Traditions, which was approved four to one with Stinnett opposed because there is only one entrance/exit planned.
— The bed and breakfast on Pearce Street was approved three to two with Commissioner Anne Reeve and Pate opposed. Reeve, who was not at the meeting but reviewed the tape, thought there were questions about who owns the property and whether it is in an historical area, which it is not. Pate said the area “is currently all residential and we’re getting ready to approve a commercial use right in the middle of it.”
— Dividing up the existing outparcels at the Gateway Commons shopping center to increase the number was approved five to zero.
— The board also unanimously approved both requests for changes in the plans at the Stonegate at St. Andrews subdivision. One will change an area on Coach Lantern Avenue from commercial, conditional use neighborhood business, to residential mixed use. The other adds a neighborhood in a wooded area using a cul-de-sac.
Also, the Little River Interlocal Agreement amendment to add uses in the wider watershed outside the critical area drew unexpected opposition from Mayor Vivian Jones, who said she was opposed to allowing solar farms because they do leak silicon. She compared them to the coal ash problem which was not thought to be a problem fifty years ago.
There is almost no Wake Forest area affected and many other, more impacted, towns have approved the amendment. After discussion – Pate said pointing out their opposition to solar farms would make a statement – the board approved unanimously a motion to approve with the exception of the solar farms.
Finally, early in the meeting, during the public comment section, Wake Forest architect Matt Hale had a aerial views and pictures of the backs of South White Street buildings along the alley that runs from East Owen Avenue, through the town parking lot and ends at Wait Avenue. The alley is a 10-foot public easement on some deeds and is used as parking by some property owners. Many property owners have built stairways to back doors, air conditioning units, an awning high over a staircase, propane tanks and even a rather unsightly dumpster.
“Private property owners have historically enjoyed unfettered use of the public facilities identified above for entrance and exit to adjoining private property and in some cases have erected structures or placed utilities and equipment on same,” Hale’s PowerPoint read.
He has researched deeds and talked with Planning Director Chip Russell. His conclusion is that the intrusions on the easement “are essential to either the function of the business, the safety of the building occupants, or both.” And he observes that “In most cases these items do not interfere with, not diminish the function of the public facilities.”
Hale’s objective was to persuade the town to regularize the existing and historic situation with the alley easement to affirm the right of the property owners to maintain those stairs, porches and landings as well as utilities and they not interfere with the function of the parking lot nor the fire lane. He wants all this to be recorded in some way for future reference.
Jones thanked him for bringing this to the attention of the board. Hale owns two properties affected, the Hale Building and open land next to the parking lot.
