The Shasta Environmental Alliance will be discussing whether to work toward an actual Tree Ordinance for Shasta County at our next board meeting.
Currently Shasta County has a “tree ordinance” that is entirely voluntary and urges preservation of trees during development and in general throughout the county but there are no requirements to preserve trees it is strictly voluntary.
The Planning Department can work with new developments whether a single lot or 1000 acres to preserve trees, however their enforcement capabilities are limited.
An example of this came to light recently when SEA discovered that a contractor graded and removed most of the 60 trees, many valley oaks, from a three-acre lot on Airport Road without a permit. The county discovered the violation and required the contractor to take out a grading permit. The total penalty that the County could charge the contractor: $234.
SEA protested the lenient treatment by letter and in person at a Planning Commission meeting and requested the project not be approved as it appeared to be a flagrant violation and evaded a valid CEQA biological survey. The contractor claimed he didn’t know about the county grading ordinance and said he was removing damaged trees from snowstorms. Regardless, it was a shrewd savings, otherwise, a plant and wildlife survey would have been required.
The project was approved with the measly $234 penalty intact. Any ordinance if adopted would most likely not include areas zoned for timber harvest as that is largely covered by the CalFire Board of Forestry and there would be limited restrictions on agricultural lands due to political realities and concerns particular to ranchers. It would most likely take several years to get an ordinance passed if successful.