He wanted to build his son a house. He didn’t let an old tree and D.C. law stop him.

 He wanted to build his son a house. He didn’t let an old tree and D.C. law stop him.

By Justin Wm. Moyer

March 4, 2022 at 6:00 a.m. EST

Rajai Zumot, a Virginia commercial real estate manager, wanted to build a house for his son, who’s getting married in June. So, last year, he bought a wooded quarter of an acre on a hill in Northwest Washington’s Foxhall Crescent, a tony cluster of homes built on the estate of former vice president Nelson Rockefeller.

For houses to be built, trees often must fall, and Zumot cleared the lot of more than a dozen smaller ones before he was faced with a final obstacle: an enormous tulip poplar that towered over the lot. The tree was protected by Section 8—651.04a of the D.C. Code — “Protection of Heritage Trees” — which establishes fines for those who cut down trees with a circumference of 100 inches or more.

An arborist told Zumot the tree could become diseased if the lot was developed and would fall on the house in a storm — as two trees did in the past six months in the neighborhood, Zumot said. So, though he is a self-proclaimed tree lover, Zumot cut the poplar down last month, a decision that enraged neighbors and D.C. officials. The fine is still being processed, according to officials, but will probably ring up at around $49,000.

Standing on a lot redolent of fresh-cut poplar and littered with arboreal debris — tree chunks as large as small cars that were once a 108-foot-tall living organism — Zumot said the choice was easy.

“I know the city thinks otherwise, but when it comes to safety, even if it’s a heritage tree, it should be cut down,” he said. “Life and safety — you cannot put a price on it.”

Zumot’s tree came down days before the D.C. Council passed emergency legislation extending protections for heritage trees. As DCist first reported, the city can now issue stop-work orders under provisions passed Tuesday to prevent developers from destroying heritage trees and dismissing fines as the cost of doing business.

D.C. planted nearly 80 trees a day to reach a canopy target. It’s running out of space.

D.C. Council member Mary M. Cheh (D-Ward 3), sponsor of the emergency legislation, said in an interview that recent heritage-tree removals like Zumot’s demanded an immediate response. Those who brazenly break the law as police watch — as was the case during a removal in Takoma Park in January — must be stopped, she said.

“I’m just appalled by these developers who are interested only in money, make it a cost of doing business … and to hell with the community,” she said. Cheh said she feared more trees would come down during the 10-day period Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) has to consider the emergency legislation, and said she hopes the mayor does not “dillydally.”

Zumot said the arborist he consulted fears contradicting D.C. officials about the tree and being “blacklisted.” To compensate for the lost poplar, Zumot said he is “happy to replenish and plant 100 trees somewhere else.”

“Don’t show me as hating trees,” he said. “I love trees.”

In an interview, Earl Eutsler, associate director of D.C.’s Urban Forestry Division, said Zumot’s claims about the tree’s health were untrue, and concerns about an arborist blacklist were “baseless.”

D.C. officials met with Zumot and consultants repeatedly to accommodate his development plans, Eutsler said, including Deputy Mayor for Operations and Infrastructure Lucinda M. Babers. Though officials “provided consistent steady guidance to advise them how to remain lawful,” Eutsler said, Zumot ignored them.

While D.C. can take the $49,000 fine Zumot will be charged and plant more trees, the trees won’t do the same job — at least not in Eutsler’s lifetime, he said.

The poplar, which had a circumference of around 157 inches and may have been more than 100 years old, would not easily be replaced even by 100 theoretical trees, Eutsler said. The benefits the “keystone tree” brought Foxhall Crescent — storm-water management, air filtration, shade — were decades in the making.

“I find it particularly galling for people to willfully violate established D.C. law,” he said. “To me, that seems lawless and in some ways un-American.”

Zumot countered: “If you plant 100 trees instead of one, it’ll make up for some of the difference.”

In Foxhall Crescent, some of Zumot’s son’s future neighbors joined the chorus condemning his actions.

The president of Foxhall Crescent’s homeowner’s association, John Fox, who did not want Zumot’s tree to come down, offered a concise review of the emergency bill: “Five days too late.” He said he supported building on the lot if it was done according to D.C. law.

“Had the legislation been enacted in time, presumably a stop-work order would have applied to have avoided this. But it wasn’t,” Fox said.

For a D.C. park to be reborn, 63 trees must die before others take their place

Across a valley from Zumot’s lot is the grand home of travel agent Alan J. Savada: Foxhall Crescent’s Casa Bocca Di Leone, or “Mouth of the Lion,” a reference to Amilcare Ponchielli’s opera “La Gioconda.” Savada concluded Zumot’s tree carnage was “disgusting.”

Though Foxhall Crescent is home to “very substantial people,” as one of the subdivision’s sales managers told The Washington Post in 1987, its lots, modeled after the terraced homes of Bath, England’s Royal Crescent, are small. These mini-mansions built after the Rockefeller estate was sold in 1979 are right on top of one another, and Savada’s windows at Casa Bocca have a direct view of Zumot’s lot.

With the poplar down, Savada said, his sylvan view is bereft of greenery, and the buzz of chain saws has been constant as he works from home. He welcomed the emergency legislation, he said, though it came too late and he fears enforcement will be spotty.

“There are no tree police,” Savada said.

Georgetown resident fined $53,000 after removing tree at former Jackie Kennedy property

Zumot, meanwhile, said he may sue to avoid paying the fine. The way he sees it, the city is denying him the right to build on land that is rightfully his.

“Had I known I was getting into this, I never would have bought the lot,” he said. “It’s a frustrating story. I hope nobody ever gets into the same predicament I’m in.”

資料來源:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-%C3%A5md-va/2022/03/04/heritage-tree-dc-legislation-foxhall-crescent/?fbclid=IwAR1EPT1vwVRpjTJKPB3iJa-36UPjZST6xnFFipB5wDbevfmBG1O1Y7ugcjE