2022-02-10-TREE-min - Laserfiche WebLink

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Review of New Tree Permit Viewpoint Implementation Summary At the Lexington Tree Committee meeting of January 13, the Committee reviewed the new implementation of the Viewpoint Tree Permit. Primarily because the implementation does not support the collection of information about individual trees in machine readable, digital format, we took the position that the current on-line implementation of Article 33 passed at Annual Town Meeting 2021 does not reflect the intent of the article and the will of Town meeting. Background/Motivation In the summer/fall of 2020, a joint working group of Tree Committee and Sustainable Lexington members developed proposals for articles for 2021 Annual Town Meeting. One of these proposed articles was motivated by the recognition that it was difficult to collect detailed information about trees removed under the Lexington Tree Bylaw as well as about trees remaining on the site. The only method of obtaining this information was to review each plot plan— a time consuming and error prone process. We realized that a solution to the problem was to require applicants for a demolition or building permit to input itemized information about trees on the property into the Viewpoint Permit system. We also recognized that as with building permits, before a certificate of occupancy should be issued, a second set of information (a"post-build survey") should be input by the applicant that would reflect what actions were actually taken on the property—trees removed and trees planted as mitigation. The post-build survey is important because it is often the case that tree removal/replanting plans change as a project progress. In the course of developing our article we recognized these side benefits to the proposed approach: • Accuracy- Less chance for error in determining fee and mitigation requirements. Instead of calculating these based on examination of the plot plan, this information would be captured in digital format and payments/replanting would be calculated automatically—an improvement over the error prone method of the Tree Warden doing this in the field. • Provision of an audit trail—Citizens often raise questions about"what happened" at a construction site in their neighborhood. The proposed solution would allow them to view this information easily on-line and remove their doubts without burdening the Tree Warden or Tree Committee members with their questions. • Applicant accountability—the applicant would be accountable for information entered as is the case for other components of building permits (plot plans, construction plans, etc.) Thus, any discrepancies cannot later be attributed to the Tree Warden. With all of this in mind, after discussion with DPW personnel, Select Board members and others, we proposed Article 33 in 2021 Town meeting. It was passed by a vote of 160 yes, 16 no, 9 abstain.