Greenwich tree warden demands that the scrub trees chopped down at the high school be turned over to “artisans” for their use. I’m willing to bet no one wants nor can use the stuff, but perhaps if it’s dried a few years in Peter Malkin’s living room it will become a valuable commodity.
For What It's Worth 
I do my art in the fireplace.
Good one Cos cobber!
Who the phuck died and left Bruce Spaman God of Greenwich Development? Hey douchebag, here’s a newsflash; by taking these steps you are GUARANTEEING that the first thing any buyer of real estate who has even the vaguest notion of doing a development / expansion project will do is CLEAR CUT their property. And what are you gonna do about it Bruce “I Never Heard of The Constitutional Prohibition Against Taking of Property Without Just Compensation” Spaman.
Must make him feel like a bigshot though. “Honey, guess how powerful I am? We can’t afford to live in Greenwich, but I can sure make life miserable for those rich assholes.” And this in the name of public “service”.
Actually woodturners (like me) start with green wood when turning bowls – it cuts better. I only work in Greenwich, I wonder if they’d let me have a log or two – who do I contact?
This reminds me of when I lived in Massachusetts. We had a small “pond” on our property that was created by the leaking septic system of neighbors across our street. We went to town hall and explained that we’d like to expand and create a larger pond once our neighbors system was repaired. The idiot water manager of the town said no. We explained to him that the “pond” he sought to protect would cease to exist once the neighbors septic was fixed, he still, in classic bureaucrat practice refused to grasp the situation. Short of it: the neighbors repaired their septic and the pond vanished within a month. A few months later, Conservation Officer Dimwit having driven by and seen the pond was gone, called me up asking (begging really) if I still wanted to get permission to put in a man-made pond. Imagine the content and tone of my response.
To “The Word”
Fact is, anyone can clearcut their property at any time, the law is pretty clear on this. Bruce Spaman’s brief is only with trees on Town property, on which he is generally the first and last decisionmaker. And as a matter of fact, there are no laws against clearcutting private property in Connecticut, regardless of mine and others attempt to make so. Because people love their trees, and love their private property rights – i.e. love someone elses’s trees when they are nice to look at and complain bitterly when someone tries to stop them from cutting their own trees.
The colonial era land grants reserved the Crown’s right to harvest timber for the benefit of the royal navy, including the right of entry by Crown carpenters and sawyers to take trees at will.
The American Revolution extinguished this reservation for the government, but made it a part of private ownership rights, where it has remained since.
From 2005 to 2011, Rep. Livy Floren has introduced State Legislation to enable municipalities to regulate all tree cutting within individual Town Boundaries. http://cga.ct.gov/asp/cgabillstatus/cgabillstatus.asp?selBillType=Bill&bill_num=HB-5049
This bill is “Dead on Arrival” every year, because it fails to address the basic mining rights of private owners, including extraction and waste of shared ground water resources, and well as timber and minerals.
We would welcome your review here or in the up-coming campaign season, of attempts by you and others to regulate this at the State or Local Level, starting with a definition of clear-cutting.
In fact, Nathan, if I remember my Maine (then part of Massachusetts) law correctly, the King reserved only those pine trees large enough to serve as masts. Those trees and those days are long gone and all that’s left is a nostalgic view that all trees, even scrub trees, shoud be preserved forever under the new divine right of kings.
As a reader suggested, go cut down the trees on your property now, before the rules change.
Hey ff, is this also true of trees in a wetlands area? I thought this was prohibited.
King’s reservation from a 1660 Connecticut Grant: ….excepting and always reserving out of this our own present grant, unto our heirs and successors forever, all such fir trees and pine trees of the diameter of twenty-four inches, at twelve inches from the ground or root, as are or shall be fit to make masts for our royal navy, as also such other trees as are or shall be fit to make plank or knees for the uso of our royal navy only, which now are standing, growing or being, or which for ever hereafter shall be standing, growing or being, in or upon any of the said tract of land and island, with free license and liberty for any person and persons whomsoever, by us, our heirs and successors, or any of them, to be thereunto authorized and appointed under our or their sign manuel, with workmen, horses, waggons, carts and carriages, and without, to enter upon and come into the same tract of land and island, and there to fell and cut down, root up, hew, saw, rive, split, have, take, cart and carry away the same, trees, planks,masts and knees for the use aforesaid, and also, except all gold and silver mines…
Nathan Hale: These reserved rights for the King’s heirs to mine and extract resources were abolished in Congress On July 9, 1776.
Who gave this guy the “power” to decide where wood goes after it was cut down? Probably a position that should be eliminated.
Greenwich Wetlands Regulations define it:
“Clear-cutting” means the harvest or removal of timber in a fashion which removes substantially all trees two inches or greater in diameter at breast height from wetlands and watercourses, upland review area, or any other area which may affect wetlands and watercourses.
Since there is no lower area limit to this in area, or requirement that the trees actually be in a de facto buffer area, the looseness of the definition allows any tree-cutting to be unlawful, since any tree may affect wetlands or watercourses. We’ll see what the courts have to say about that.
In reality the authority of wetlands agencies is limited to wetlands (by a strict definition of soils) and immediate riparian buffer in fact. Upland review is, well, only a review.