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Medlin, Johnny <br /> From: Medlin, Johnny <br /> To: Hammitt, Bob <br /> Cc: Etter, John (RIS1); Staszewski, Jan; Weber, John <br /> Subject Linda Norris' inquiry regarding trees on Old Dillard <br /> Date: Tuesday, September 28, 1993 1:14PM <br /> Bob, I asked John Weber to work with Jan in researching this issue. It was a little vague exactly where this <br /> property was and what was happening from the note you forwarded from Linda. Is this someone concerned <br /> about upcoming events or are trees currently hitting the ground? We are making the assumption the area in <br /> question is one we are aware of and that trees are not currently being felled . What John found out was this: <br /> There is an old PUD (Dillard Woods) which has been replatted into four lots. At this time this is a subdivision <br /> only and not an approved PUD. Since the site is within the South Hills Study area any development will be <br /> - required to be under a PUD. Our contact with PIC indicated that the owners have expressed an interest in <br /> pursuing development but have not done a formal PUD submittal yet. Therefore there is no "site development <br /> approval" in place. <br /> There is an active tree removal application under consideration by the Urban Forester for this site. The applicant <br /> (Benchmark Northwest Inc.) has asked to remove trees which are unhealthy, hazardous, and over crowded with <br /> additional Douglas fir trees being requested to be removed to lesson the threat of windthrow of shallow rooted <br /> trees. <br /> You might notice that development is not stated as one of the reasons for the removal and justifiably so since <br /> they realize that we will deny removals on that basis without the PUD in place. Of course once the PUD is in <br /> place we no longer have jurisdiction on the issue. At that point it becomes a Building Division issue with the <br /> Land Use Management (LUMS) staff responsible for enforcement of the tree specific conditions included in the <br /> PUD agreement. Typically, most of the questions regarding trees hitting the ground on large parcels fall within <br /> this category. <br /> We are approximately half way through the 15 day comment period for the abutting properties and no decisions <br /> on the merits of the application have yet been made. The code required our decision to be made by October 8th. <br /> I'm including a copy of the notice we sent the near -by property owners for your review. <br /> «File Attachment: BENCH.NOT» <br /> It seems that the applicants best argument for an amount of tree removal is for the "health of the forest ". It <br /> remains to be seen if, once we review the site in depth and the comments received, we will agree that the <br /> removals requested are best for that reason. We will evaluate this application on the basis of its merits given the <br /> code criteria, however, given the current sensitivity of the community any errors we made on our evaluation we <br /> want to be on the side of tree preservation. <br /> As a help to us in administering this program you might ask Linda to refer people directly to us here so that we <br /> can get the additional information we need to answer their questions. Also, you might want to let her know that <br /> we are maintaining copies of any of these large parcel applications for tree removal at the front counter here at <br /> PWM for anyone who wishes to review them. <br /> Page 1 <br />