Attorney David Winker

Save the trees, Miami! 🌴 Repost from @miamicanopywatch • This is one of the most important speeches delivered at any Miami tree hearing this year by @davidjwinker Attorney David Winker stood up at the HEPB hearing and read Chapter 17 into the official record. Not as commentary. As law. Listen to what it actually says. The intent of Chapter 17 is to protect, preserve and restore the tree canopy within the City of Miami by regulating the removal, relocation, pruning, planting and trimming of trees. The purpose is to assure that the design and construction of all development activity is executed in a manner consistent with the preservation of existing trees. And then the standard that everything is measured against — to the greatest extent possible. That is the legal test. Not whether removal is convenient. Not whether the building footprint conflicts. Not whether the developer prefers a clean lot. The test is whether the proposed action preserves existing trees to the greatest extent possible. The attorney then laid out the criteria for removal. A tree can only be removed if it is located in the buildable area AND it unreasonably restricts the permitted use of the property. There was a house on this lot before. The permitted use is a single family home. Nothing about these trees prevents a single family home from being built. And yet the developer came back asking to remove more trees than the previous plan. The previous plan called for 12 removed and 9 relocated. The new plan wants 15 removed and only 6 relocated. They came back and made it worse. Chapter 17 is the law. To the greatest extent possible is the standard. And Miami is not meeting it. MiamiCanopyWatch.com — because the data should be as clear as the law.