Tree preservation bylaw overwhelmingly approved by Lynnfield voters!!!

LYNNFIELD ― The Planning Board’s efforts to convince residents to adopt a tree-preservation bylaw may have taken more than two years, but the wait was worth it.

Monday night voters overwhelmingly showed their support for the bylaw at Town Meeting, voting 162-7 in favor of adoption of the bylaw as proposed in Article 3.

“I’m so grateful that throughout this whole process, once we got to Town Meeting, we saw a great response from residents who truly saw how needed this bylaw protection is,” said Planning Board Chair Brian Charville. “Honestly, though, I didn’t ever expect such overwhelming support that we received tonight.”

“This was a true team effort,” said Director of Planning and Conservation Emilie Cadamartori.

The vote followed a brief presentation by the Planning Board. Charville began the presentation with a promise.

“The Red Sox game begins at 8:08 tonight and I plan to be home in time to watch it,” he said.

Charville said the bylaw had the unanimous support of the Tree Committee and Finance Committee, and its main purpose was to help maintain the town’s character. Prior to the Town Meeting, the Select Board voted 2-1 to recommend an indefinite postponement of consideration of the bylaw. Select Board Chair Dick Dalton was the only “nay” vote.

Charville challenged attendees by asking if any of them had plans to demolish a home, build a subdivision, work with a site plan or planned to build a two-family home. Nobody did.

“Unlike last year’s bylaw, this applies only to four types of activities,” Charville said, noting that the bylaw applies only to new subdivisions, new home construction, commercial-property projects requiring site plans, and projects requiring a special permit (commercial, multi-unit residential, and non-conforming properties.)

Charville noted that developers can still clear cut land, but they must come to the Planning Board first. Developers have the option to replace any cut trees with trees equal to or greater than the dimensions of the cut tree or pay a sum into the town’s tree fund. The bylaw applies only to trees with a six-inch or more diameter and applies equally to town departments and homeowners.

Planning Board member Amy McNulty noted the reasons why the bylaw is needed, among them being privacy, enhanced property values, improved air quality, and other environmental benefits.

“The town continues to get urgent calls that someone is tree clearing next to their home and ask what we can do about it,” she said. “Without the bylaw, the answer is ‘no,'” adding more than 50 acres of tree canopy in Lynnfield have been destroyed in the last 10 years.

The only two residents who spoke stated they were in favor of the bylaw, urging attendees to vote to adopt it.

Resident Melanie Lovell spoke about the many benefits of the bylaw and the fact that its scope is “very limited.”

“We need trees to help with climate resiliency,” said Pat Campbell, citing enhanced property values. “I’m glad we will have the Planning Board represent us. Please turn down indefinite postponement. We have waited long enough. You want this to impact the Planning Board decisions when new homes are knocked down or new homes are built. It’s high time that we do something to preserve the character of our town.”

Any further discussion was cut off by Frances Fleming, whose motion to move the question was overwhelmingly approved by voters, 171-3.

Charville said the bylaw goes into effect “immediately.”

“I can only imagine how important this bylaw will be with projects like Vallis Way (a subdivision proposal to create five additional lots on a rear lot) on Lowell Street and Sagamore Springs (potential subdivision residential housing development),” he said. “This was a completely public process that was discussed at at least 27 meetings and we are so grateful for the support of the Tree Committee members who got informational flyers into people’s hands and went door to door to get the voters here tonight. Their efforts and the efforts of so many was what pushed us over the line tonight.”