OTTUMWA —
Following their discussion, City Council members and the mayor are at odds on whether to change the city right-of-way ordinance, though all agree a tree replacement program is needed.
At this week’s City Council work session, Councilmen Brian Morgan, Mitch Niner and Bob Meyers said a proposed amendment to the city’s ordinance that currently allows planting in rights-of-way should be changed to prohibit planting in all rights-of-way.
“I’m holding my ground,” Niner said. “I think there should be no trees in the right-of-way unless it’s a commercial piece of property, with permission. We own the parking anyway, and we’re not taking anybody’s trees out since everything there now will be grandfathered in. It would only affect anyone planting a new tree.”
Niner said right now, a resident could buy a tree and plant it in the front corner of their yard or choose to jump across the sidewalk and plant it in the right-of-way, “to where the taxpayers of Ottumwa have to pay to have it taken out at some time.”
“It needs to stop from this point forward,” he said. “It’s not fair to the taxpayers of this community that aren’t affected by this to continue to pay for trees in the parking.”
Mayor Frank Flanders said he’s heard the proposal to prohibit trees from the rights-of-way “is not popular with the public.
“I’ve got some concerns myself, and I know the council members have concerns about it, though they may not be the same ones,” he said.
Flanders said “in all likelihood,” the ordinance will not be on the agenda for next Tuesday’s council meeting, unless two council members request that it be placed on the agenda.
“Myself, and I think a majority of the council members, are in favor of leaving the right-of-way ordinance the way it is and doing a tree replacement program as a stand-alone measure,” Flanders said. “The stand-alone measure was my preference to begin with.”
Morgan said that’s not the case.
“I think it’s something we discussed in the work session; we had a consensus that this is what we want,” Morgan said. “If the mayor would like to pull it off [the agenda], he should talk to us and say, ‘Hey, I would like to have some further discussion about this ordinance before we put it on the agenda,’ not just go and pull it off himself.”
Two council members are required to put an item on an agenda, though Niner said he doesn’t know whether that will happen this week.
Morgan said an amended ordinance prohibiting future trees from being planted in the rights-of-way needs to go hand-in-hand with a tree replacement program.
“Instead of just fixing the problem of replacing trees, which everyone is solidly behind, there needs to be something in place, no matter what it is, prohibiting trees being planted in the rights-of-way,” Morgan said.
The ordinance, as it currently stands, states that property owners are allowed to plant grass, shrubs and trees in the city right-of-way, but the city may come in at any time to remove all trees or other things growing “in order to construct buried utilities, sidewalks or street improvements.”
Councilman J.R. Richards said the ordinance should be left alone.
“The more I’ve looked at it, the more it seems to cover all the bases,” he said.
Richards said he would like a work session to be held Monday along with the regularly scheduled council meeting Tuesday.
“[The ordinance] doesn’t really allow for any tree program,” Richards said. “Perhaps the best thing to do is not to bother with the ordinance but to come back with a resolution involving the city in a tree replacement program.”
Councilman Jeremy Weller said he wasn’t sure whether the ordinance would be brought up at Tuesday’s meeting, but he thought the council had come to a consensus at the Monday work session.
Meyers could not be reached as of press time.
Local News
August 17, 2012
Fate of city rights-of-way up in the air
Council, mayor struggle to define right-of-way ordinance, tree replacement program
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