We’ve heard stories of protesters lying in front of bulldozers to save trees; if Responsible Growth for Northcross is correct, it could be the trees themselves that stop the bulldozers. The city’s Tree Preservation Ordinance is one of four key pillars in the lawsuit RG4N has filed to kill Lincoln Property’s plan to build a Wal-Mart Supercenter on the Northcross Mall site.

Lincoln’s two site plans were filed well before the City Council passed the Big Box Ordinance on Feb. 15 of this year, so the position of city legal staff has been that the city’s hands are tied and nothing can stop the Wal-Mart. RG4N’s suit seeks to have those site plans ruled illegal, thus forcing the filing of a new site plan under current law, which requires council approval of any big-box retail. The four allegations are that in approving the site plan, the city: 1) failed to enforce a subdivision plat note which protects Shoal Creek from flooding and pollution, 2) failed to review the site plan to ensure compliance with traffic and public safety provisions of the Land Development Code, 3) failed to follow proper procedure requiring a conditional-use permit for the Wal-Mart Garden Center, and 4) failed to enforce the Tree Preservation Ordinance.

The suit notes that in addition to the provision protecting trees 19 inches or greater in diameter, the ordinance also requires that “an application for site plan approval must demonstrate that the design will preserve the existing natural character of the landscape, including the retention of trees eight inches or larger in diameter to the extent feasible.” The Lincoln site plan authorized the destruction of 29 trees at 8 inches or greater, including 10 more than 19 inches. Also, the suit points out that the city’s Environmental Criteria Manual “allows the City to consider authorizing removal of existing trees ‘only after all design alternatives which could save more existing trees have been evaluated.’

“This early consideration of design alternatives never occurred,” the suit alleges.

This article appears in September 21 • 2007.

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