When Trees Fall in Scarsdale, Do Trustees Hear Them Or Us?

Are you perplexed about this tree thing? There seems to have been a lot of heat (but not much light) generated by Scarsdale government in crafting a new tree ordinance – drafts and re-drafts, and comments from unaffiliated members of the public during Village meetings that seemed to have been unanimously in opposition to it. Do you wonder, then, why this ordinance was approved by the Scarsdale Citizen Non-Partisan Party’s Board of Trustees and approved unanimously no less? Do you wonder if there was evidence of any significant support for this proposal outside of the vocal interest group that agitated for it? Or, like me, did you perceive a groundswell of opposition? Moreover are you wondering if there is any reason to think this is anything more than another Village Hall solution in search of a problem? Are you wondering whom these Trustees represent?

Here in a nutshell are the key aspects of the law the Scarsdale Citizen’s Party’s Board of Trustees imposed upon Scarsdale property-owners last week:

1. Homeowners are permitted to remove up to two of their trees within a 24-month period with a “notification” to the Village, rather than a permit.

• If a tree’s DBH (Diameter at Breast Height) is greater than 24”, then the homeowner must either plant another tree on his or her property or a tribute must be paid to the Village.
• If a homeowner’s tree’s DBH exceeds 36 inches then the homeowner must by law replacement it on his or her property (the replacement requirement seems to be not well defined in the documents allowing far too much latitude to Village functionaries).
• Even the removal of a dead, dying, or diseased tree on a homeowner’s private property will require a permit (but no replacement is necessary and no permit fee is to be paid).
• The removal of certain trees that are only 3” in diameter at breast height would require a permit. (I have read elsewhere that by definition, the requirement of a permit means the village engineer can deny you the freedom to remove even one of your trees).

I was personally perplexed at how anyone would think our homeowners want to deal with: permits and the hassle and tributes associated with them; escrow deposits and the hassles of getting escrow returned; employment of costly Village functionaries to make decisions about the granting of permits, to follow the lives of young replacement trees, and as one Trustee suggested in a public meeting a few months ago, to serve as tree police investigating whether a tree might have been intentionally poisoned by its owner.

Can anyone really be in favor of more costly salaries, more costly pension benefits and more costly health care benefits for tree police? I am perplexed when I heard that one Trustee claimed that this ordinance is really aimed at developers. If that’s the case, why was it not aimed it at developers? Why did the Trustees not simply enact some baseline controls to mitigate the impact of clear-cutting in anticipation of construction?

But more to the point I wondered, “who owns the trees on my private property? And what does it mean to own something?” What if a homeowner doesn’t want trees near his or her house for whatever reason?

During the public comment session before the unanimous vote, it became very clear that there was absolutely no evidence gathered to suggest that Scarsdale homeowners are overall choosing to denude their properties of trees. No empirical evidence was adduced that there has been a reduction in Scarsdale tree count, that soil erosion is occurring due to a dearth of tree cover, that air quality is suffering as a result of felled trees or of any other externality imposed on homeowners by their neighbors trees of lack thereof.

There is no evidence that this law is addressing a problem – no facts were gathered and none was discussed. To my mind it is simply an egregious violation of private property rights and a revenue-generating scheme. BUT WHAT DISTURBS ME MOST IS THAT IT WAS IMPOSED ON US UNANIMOUSLY. Reasonable people can disagree about the law - - one member of the interest group, for example, expressed clearly his disdain for private property rights during the comment session and I understand that a small minority of Americans would not consider that unreasonable. And they should be represented. As should what seems to be the majority of Scarsdale homeowners who oppose this law. Clearly the vote on the tree law reflects a lack of diversity on the Board.

The fact is, this groupthink where every Trustee votes in lockstep is a direct outcome of a century of single-party governance in Scarsdale. Voters have had no choice but to either cast a vote in an uncontested election or to stay home, so the vast majority naturally stays home (and why shouldn’t we?) Therefore, Scarsdale governance has become dominated by the preferences of a very small minority of like-minded partisans who are unanimous in their preferences and that unanimity is reflected in the votes cast by their (s)elected officials.

That’s why the Voter’s Choice party exists -- to give voice to those who choose to think independently, to defeat groupthink and to support candidates who will bring new diversity to the Scarsdale Board of Trustees. We encourage independent thinkers to work with us for change (even those who independently support tree laws).

Robert Selvaggio is an economist and a long-term Scarsdale resident.