Bastrop, Tx–With an emotional group of critics of a proposed city tree preservation law watching, Bastrop City Manager Mike Talbot recommended at a meeting Tuesday–and the city council approved–withdrawing the proposed rules indefinitely because the issue had become disruptive to other endeavors.
After the draft regulations were recommended for council approval last month by the Planning and Zoning Commission, City Hall was flooded with phone calls and emails denouncing the measure, and council members began voicing reservations.
One of the critics who addressed the council, Georgia Parmalee, said the rules as proposed were excessive. “We can take care of our own trees with a little (city) guidance,” she said.
New tree preservation rules were proposed after a public outcry last year when commercial lots at three corners of the Texas 71 intersection with Texas 95 in Bastrop were largely stripped of trees and the formerly rolling terrain was leveled.
Council Members Julie Hart and Kay Garcia McAnally praised critics of the proposal for their civic engagement.
Mayor Terry Orr said he supports “some form of tree ordinance” but argued that the time is not right to pursue the issue, especially with the city planning director’s position vacant. Former planning director Stacy Snell resigned last month to accept a position in New Braunfels.
Trees were also the topic of two other items on Tuesday’s city council agenda. In one case the council approved a proposal by the Riverside Grove Homeowners Association to pay for and plant 72 shade trees in public rights of way in the subdivision over the next three years.
On a separate issue the council endorsed Talbot’s suggestion to ask a tree expert to investigate and make recommendations about a concern by downtown building owner Kay Wesson that a tree in the sidewalk near the intersection of Main and Pine Street is damaging her building at 901 Main St. The arborist is already giving advice about tree preservation measures during a landscaping and utility relocation project now underway on
Chestnut Street east of Water Street, said Talbot.