“Trees are as valuable as people”: Alachua County Commission considers changes to their tree protection codes, asks UF Health to provide cost estimates to all patients of the new Eastside clinic

BY JENNIFER CABRERA

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – At their August 8 Special Meeting, the Alachua County Commission passed a five-part motion asking staff to research various elements of their tree protection code and voted to send a Chair letter to UF Health, asking them to provide cost estimates to all patients at their new Eastside clinic.

The agenda item on “Tree Protection in Developments” arose because of a discussion at the June 11 meeting, when Commissioner Ken Cornell became upset at the number of trees slated to be cut down to build 36 homes on 5 acres in the Parker Road Cottage Neighborhood. At that meeting, Commissioners asked staff to look at ways to save additional trees in developments and suggest code changes to do that.

Current tree protections

Alachua County Growth Management Director Jeff Hays said the County’s land development code has a species-specific hierarchy for protecting trees: trees receive priority for protection based on species, size, age, condition, historic association, and uniqueness. Champion trees and designated specimen trees cannot be removed or must be mitigated (meaning a fine is paid) if damage cannot be avoided. 20% of the existing tree canopy on the site must be preserved except in certain types of developments with high density. 60-inch-diameter trees must be retained unless development cannot occur anywhere else on the site; Hays said he can only recall one 60-inch tree that was removed since that standard was adopted in 2020, “and that was because it was in a roadway.”

The protected area for any tree is equal to the drip line of the tree unless a larger area is more appropriate, and that may be up to two additional feet in the protection diameter for every inch of tree trunk diameter.

Prizzia: “Half the time they’re not actually destroying the trees”

Commissioner Anna Prizzia said the board may want to reconsider the drip line requirement because it adds to all the other constraints for developers – “the stormwater and the open space and the trees – they can’t figure out how to have no drip line impacts. So they show that they’re destroying the trees, and half the time they’re not actually destroying the trees – the trees are being retained because they’re actually an amenity or asset to the development, but they don’t want to say that they’re protecting them because if they say they’re protecting them, they have to protect them with zero drip line impacts.”

Prizzia said she supported drip line impacts “because these are living creatures, and they need space to live, just like we all need space to live,” but she thought the County should look more into “the science of that” and how different types of impacts into drip lines affect trees.

County Forester Jessica Hong said the drip line impact requirements only apply to the trees that count toward the 20% canopy requirement; developers can impact the drip line of trees that are above that minimum canopy, but they still have to mitigate for those trees as if they were not retained. 

Since developers have to pay to mitigate the tree, there is no incentive to save it

Chair Mary Alford said mitigation is the issue because if a developer has to pay to mitigate the tree, anyway, there is no incentive to save the tree. She suggested making developers responsible for the survival of the trees if they impact the drip line.

Prizzia said she hoped they wouldn’t make any major decisions at the meeting because they have several environmental policy projects coming before them soon, including a Climate Action Plan, that will affect development standards, so she wanted to discuss all of them together. She said, however, that she thought they should find some flexibility for drip line impacts and potential mitigation to incentivize developers to save more trees. 

Prizzia also said that she had spoken to the developer of the Parker Road Cottage Neighborhood development, “and some of those trees aren’t getting cut down; it’s just they didn’t include them in their development plan.”

Cornell said he wanted to reduce the size of tree that can’t be removed to something under 60 inches, but he also wanted to set priorities in the code so staff can weigh different factors in determining the best design for a development. Hays said it can be very difficult to meet all the requirements on a small property. 

Prizzia: “I think if we didn’t require as much mitigation as we require, we may get better tree protection. I really do.”

Prizzia suggested asking staff for ideas on a reduced standard of drip line protection for trees outside the minimum canopy: “I think if we didn’t require as much mitigation as we require, we may get better tree protection. I really do.”

Hays said the limit for impacting the drip line is 50%, and developers that take advantage of that have to pay 50% of the mitigation fee it would cost to cut the tree down. Hong added that developers can also elect to pay the full mitigation fee and get their money back if the tree is still alive after five years.

Prizzia: “Eventually they can’t develop anything, right?”

Prizzia supported adding some incentives to protect more trees than required: “If we keep adding – like, you have to protect the 40-inch, you have to protect the 30-inch, you have to protect the 20-inch – there’s not going to be any development availability left, and we’re going to end up in lawsuits… because all of our requirements layer on top of each other, and eventually they can’t develop anything, right?”

She said trees are a natural resource like wetlands and endangered species, and it’s important to “recognize that trees are as valuable as people, are as valuable as another natural creature – we all deserve to be here, and we all deserve the same respect and autonomy to be on this planet, and we’re all equally a part of the importance of this ecosystem that we call planet earth… But unfortunately, we’re dealing with people whose only real drive is their bottom line – it’s a spreadsheet and it’s money and it’s economics. They don’t care about the economic value of the water quality that that tree is providing, because they aren’t going to ever have to deal with that water quality, especially the national developers.”

Cornell threatens to impose a tree moratorium “because I don’t want our urban forests to be slashed and burned”

Cornell said he was ready to put resources into taking a tree inventory within the urban cluster and use it to develop strategies. He said he was “pretty upset” at the trees being removed for the Parker Road Cottage Neighborhood project, “and I don’t know how many nights I’m going to get upset… because another couple of upset nights and I’m going to throw out a tree moratorium because I don’t want our urban forests to be slashed and burned… and I’m hoping that developers are hearing that because there is a quick way to fix this by changing some words in our code, and I don’t want to do that.”

He said he would prefer a collaborative process with developers, “but I want our developers to work with us, not against us.” He said that if he doesn’t hear “solutions from them about how do we fix it, then we fix it by lowering the inches and by changing the definitions, and we treat live oaks like we treat wetlands – that’s how we fix it… And I am ready to do that because I don’t want to lose our urban forest.”

Prizzia responded, “I want to make sure that what we do isn’t reactionary and it’s thoughtful and it’s approached with a holistic mindset.”

Motion on tree protection

Hays said they could make shorter-term changes, and Cornell made a four-part motion. The first part was to “refer to staff to bring back some recommendations on drip-line impacts that are allowable without mitigation funds.” The second part was to “refer to staff to bring back recommendations of what other counties and cities are doing for following up on the monitoring and different time frames.” Part three was to “bring back a recommendation on how staff would prioritize the hierarchy of trees,” and part four was to “refer to staff to bring back to us a budget and a timeline of doing a tree inventory within the urban cluster.”

County Manager Michele Lieberman suggested that staff could bring back a “back-of-the-napkin” cost for the tree inventory when the County Commission considers the FY2025 budget, and Cornell emphasized that he wanted that by the September budget meetings. Prizzia also wanted to move quickly to see if the County could “piggyback” on the City’s contract for a tree inventory.

Alford suggested adding a fifth part to the motion of “other ways to basically save trees… any other recommendation that staff has to preserve the urban tree canopy.”

The motion passed unanimously.

Pricing at the UF Health Urgent Care Center – Eastside

During commission comment, Prizzia said she remained concerned about the pricing at the UF Health Urgent Care Center – Eastside, and she had learned that “all hospitals and urgent care and doctors’ offices can provide estimates, and typically they do it upon request. And if it’s not urgent care or ED, they actually have to, by law, stay within 10% of that estimate. That’s not true necessarily of an urgent care or emergency room because they sometimes have to act quickly, and they don’t know what they’re going to need to do.”

Prizzia continued, “I wanted to see if we could write a letter to the administrators of the Eastside clinic, to ask if they would proactively provide estimates to all of the patients that come in, so that people understand what it is that they’re getting into. It’s not that difficult to do. They do it upon request.” She said there had also been “conversation about the possibility of a pharmacy kiosk and the possibility of being able to do labs, and so I just wanted to encourage them to consider [pursuing both of those things.]”

Cornell seconded her motion for a two-part Chair letter, and the motion passed unanimously.

Hurricane Debby State of Emergency extended for seven days

At the request of Lieberman, the board also voted unanimously to extend the State of Emergency for Hurricane Debby for seven days because staff was still doing damage assessments and the river was still rising.