N.C. Bill Hinders Local Tree Protection Ordinances, Underscores Need to End Gerrymandering

My #ThemeSong today is Kim's Caravan by Courtney Barnett, which laments the decline of our planet and home as a result of human greed:

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A couple weeks ago, our tree maintenance company requested that we contact our state legislators to oppose a NC bill requiring localities to receive state approval for future (and many existing) tree protection requirements, with predominant affect on developers and homebuilders. House Bill 496 (HB496 or H496) is titled, "AN ACT PROVIDING THAT COUNTIES AND CITIES SHALL NOT ADOPT ORDINANCES REGULATING THE REMOVAL OF TREES FROM PRIVATE PROPERTY WITHOUT THE EXPRESS AUTHORIZATION OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY," and it has been placed on the NC House Calendar for *today* (May 11, 2021).

For decades, the state-created NC Forest Service has encouraged and assisted local governments in Developing Tree Protection Ordinances. NC State and other NC Universities have also gone to great lengths to educate local governments and the public about the importance and ways to develop tree protection ordinances: https://content.ces.ncsu.edu/protecting-and-retaining-trees-a-guide-for-municipalities-and-counties-in-north-carolina.

And now the Republican-majority NC General Assembly is setting itself up to negate these same local tree protection ordinances. It’s a classic case of the Right hand erasing what the Left hand is writing.

Even with help from the NC Forest Service and state colleges and universities, it is far from easy for citizens and their elected officials to devise, much less actually implement, environmentally protective requirements of developers and homebuilders. I have been involved in development issues in Durham, NC, for 12 of the last 15 years. Among the most publicized of the highly impervious, tree-decimating Durham developments I advocated against were:

Scott Mill: https://lists.deltaforce.net/pipermail/inc-list/2007/001533.html

Fayetteville Road Assemblage: https://www.dconc.gov/home/showdocument?id=2348 and https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/counties/durham-county/article10291109.html

Jordan at Southpoint: https://lists.deltaforce.net/pipermail/inc-list/2007/001599.html

751 South: https://indyweek.com/topics/melissa-rooney/.

Frustrated with the mounting futility of opposing developers at planning commission, city council, and county commissioners' meetings, I proposed to Durham's Interneighborhood Council what would become a city-and-county sanctioned proposal for "Environmental Enhancements to [Durham's] Unified Development Ordinance": https://www.melissarooneywriting.com/DN_Nov2010.pdf. This was a long and arduous process for many Durham citizens, elected officials, and employees and included representation from the Homebuilders Association; but, though most of the proposal's suggestions were eventually adopted, expanding tree buffers around streams and creeks was not.

In the case of the 751 South development - the one that broke me - the public maintained momentum for *years* to stop a developer from literally redrawing the boundaries of Jordan Lake, a public recreation area and drinking water supply for nearly 700,000 Triangle residents, so they could build a massive mixed-use, highly impervious (concrete and roofs) development on what was previously within the boundaries of Jordan Lake. After years-long, heated and very public opposition, the Durham County Board of Commissioners approved the rezoning required to redraw the lake boundaries and enable the development. Next the developers had to get the city council to approve annexation and, therefore, the public water services required for the massive project. The embattled community remained engaged in the ensuing months-long, heavily watched drama, and the city council voted not to provide water to the new development.

I was elated. The absurdity of the whole experience had made my naive and idealistic mind incredibly anxious. By the time the city council made its decision, I was on 1 anti-anxiety and 3 blood-pressure medications. I was physically relieved when the public good finally won. But the relief was short-lived.

The developers appealed to the state legislature, which, after a cursory public hearing, passed a bill that literally forced Durham to annex and provide them with water and other public services.

All those years of public involvement, all that passion and momentum, all that had inspired me to partake in local government in the first place - all that went down the drain.

What's the point of attending local meetings, public hearings, work sessions, etc., when the state legislature can just invalidate whatever your local government decides? And what’s the use of voicing your concerns to the state when the majority party members are literally putting their fingers in their ears?

Over the last few years, I have withdrawn from development (and other) issues. I even stopped reading about them in the local news. I concentrated on my family and my kids' schools, begrudgingly accepting that, regardless of how logically I or anyone else objected, the current ruling majority was going to do what it wanted.

Since the Covid quarantine began, I've at least started reading about local issues again. And, whether it's related to education, stormwater management, tax relief, environmental protections... I can't stop thinking that, if I were to become involved again, it would be to advance legislation eliminating gerrymandering.

House Bill 496, the one that removes a city's or county's autonomy to determine it's own tree protections, is a rewriting of a 2019 bill (NC Bill 367) that never went the distance; and both of these bills were introduced by North Carolina's gerrymandered majority Republican legislature. 

In 2010, the Republican party gained control of the NC General Assembly for the first time in 112 years and immediately set about gerrymandering North Carolina's voting districts to ensure success in future elections. Nine years later, a state court panel threw out North Carolina’s Legislative Maps as an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander. The consequences were that NC lawmakers had to draw up new voting maps in two weeks, which would then be reviewed for nonpartisan objectivity. Despite Republican legislators openly admitting their plans to draw the new maps to "consolidate and water down certain voting blocs", the current maps were finally approved in December 2019 to keep the 2020 primary elections on schedule; and North Carolina's 2020 election results, once again, demonstrated the persistence of partisan gerrymandering.

And what about the gerrymandered maps that were enacted in 2011 and the results of NC elections since then? "Since Republicans drew the legislative boundaries eight years ago," states a NY Times article on the matter, "the [Republican] party has maintained healthy majorities — and often supermajorities — in the State House and the State Senate, even when Democrats won a majority of the vote statewide." Duh!

The Times article goes on to explain that, to draw these voting districts, the Republicans who took control of the NC Legislature in 2010 hired a Republican political strategist, Thomas B. Hofeller, who was well known for his success in drafting partisan gerrymanders. "Democrats in the Legislature were not allowed to meet Mr. Hofeller and had no role in the maps’ creation," the Times says. "The Republicans turned again to Mr. Hofeller in 2017, after federal courts ruled that 28 of the districts he had created were racial gerrymanders and had to be redrawn. "

This is worse than letting the horse out of the barn. Thanks to our inept system of accountability, NC's gerrymandered Republican leadership has saddled the horse and is riding it out of town.

Not surprisingly, the Republican NC legislators elected by gerrymander since 2010 are precisely the ones prioritizing private profits over public good. During their rule, their majority has been stripping NC of long-sighted policies arduously put in place during the preceding century to protect the public interest from private profiteering.

Among its many detriments, Passing House Bill 496 will enable the state legislature to veto local ordinances against mass grading trees- even those growing along waterways - that have taken centuries to grow into the large-scale (and free) water filters they are. Our science cannot replicate them; but our governments spend hundreds of millions of dollars trying to do so when stormwater runoff from unsustainable development floods neighboring properties and pollutes local waterways to the point that the federal government requires cleanup and/or financial penalties. Meanwhile, the entire country is suffering pollution-related global warming that's exacerbating the problems that already exist.

***North Carolina friends, please contact your state legislators and implore them to stick to their traditional platform of grassroots government and kill House Bill 496. Then contact them again and implore them to pass legislation requiring independent, nonpartisan determination of North Carolina’s voting districts. While you're at it, contact your US legislators and ask that they end gerrymandering across the country.***

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Here's another good article on the matter:

https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/politics-government/article229029089.html

Notable excerpts from the above article/link:

"Cities like Charlotte, Durham and Raleigh that already have tree ordinances that were specifically sanctioned by the legislature wouldn’t see them thrown out. Davidson, Chapel Hill and three dozen other municipalities would also see their tree ordinances remain in effect.

But other cities and towns that want a tree ordinance in the future would have to come to the legislature to request enabling legislation, passed through what’s known as a local act. And any tree ordinance not already covered by an existing local act would be wiped off the books."

“But Sen. Mujtaba Mohammed, a Mecklenburg Democrat, said the state legislature shouldn’t tell cities what they can and and can’t do to regulate trees. “I’m not understanding why the General Assembly is stepping in,” he said.”

"Under Charlotte’s current tree save ordinance, developers must keep 10 or 15 percent of the current trees on a site, depending on where they build, or plant new trees if they’re redeveloping an area with none (such as an abandoned big-box store). Under some circumstances, they can also pay a fee instead to a trust fund, which the city uses to purchase wooded land and protect with easements."

“Durham Mayor Steve Schewel, who has made restoring the city’s tree canopy one of his priorities, said that they require developers to have certain tree buffers. The city needs to keep that ability, he said.”

“We are in full support of this bill,” said Steven Webb, the Home Builders Association’s lobbyist. “Tree ordinances have a negative effect on housing affordability and property rights.”

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And here's a local news article about NC cities/counties' opposition to House Bill 496 *and* House Bill 401, the latter of which restricts localities' regulation of development with regard to residential occupancy and number of buildings/lot: https://www.carolinacoastonline.com/news_times/article_217ef5bc-a78c-11eb-a23e-f3e4f9119c9a.html.

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