THE GAZETTE
Wednesday, July 31, 2013 o
Page A-7
Tree canopy law applies to even treeless lots Builders call measure tantamount to a fee
BY
KATE S. ALEXANDER STAFF WRITER
A bill passed last week to preserve Montgomery County’s tree canopy doesn’t just replace those that are cut down, but also requires planting new trees where they never existed in the first place, a change suggested by the building industry. But lawmakers opted to require more trees than builders suggested, which some say is the same as imposing a fee. The Montgomery County Council unanimously passed its tree canopy conservation bill July 23 with a goal of stemming the reduction in the canopy that often accompanies in-fill development.
About 51 percent of the county’s land is covered by a canopy of trees, but depending where you are in Montgomery, that canopy can be thick or thin. The new law, which takes effect in March, would require those who obtain a sediment control permit to plant enough trees on their lot to cover 50 percent of the area being developed or to pay the equivalent cost of the trees to the county. Stan Edwards, chief of the county Division of Environmental Policy and Compliance in the Department of Environmental Protection, said the county had originally proposed a bill that would only deal with replacing the canopy that was “disturbed.” But Renewing Montgomery, an initiative of neighborhood builders, suggested making all properties, regardless of existing trees, subject
to the law. As approved, the law does not just replace trees that are removed from a lot for development. “It applies even when no tree was cut down and even when no tree was on the site to begin with,” said Michael Faden, the council’s senior legislative attorney. The county went along with the change, but disagreed with builders on how many trees it would take to have half the area covered by a mature canopy, Edwards said. Based on data analyzed by the county, Edwards said, the environmental division found that only one in three trees survived to become a mature tree and suggested that the county require more trees to be planted than what builders suggested. The council decided to require approximately triple the
Bullet point: Ammo supplies run low Gun owners finding ammo in short supply n
BY
MARGIE HYSLOP
SPECIAL TO THE GAZETTE
Shooting sports enthusiasts in the county say they are not sure why they are having a harder time than ever finding ammunition and other supplies to pursue their hobby. But they do know they are spending more and traveling farther to get bullets for a session of target practice or shells for a few hours shooting clay pigeons. Supplies are short and unpredictable at locally owned as well as national chain stores in the area, shop visits and conversations with managers and customers confirmed. “You can still find it if you know where to go,” said Dick Chiapparoli, range coordinator for the Izaak Walton League of America’s Rockville chapter. But it may mean calling around and trekking farther afield, around or outside the county or in another state, Chiapparoli and others said. To get the ammunition their firearms require, some folks are driving to Pennsylvania, said Lee Hays, who is first vice president of Izaak Walton’s Rockville chapter. “Seems to be no problem there,” Hays said. However, short supplies have been reported in communities across the country. Stephen Schneider, who owns Atlantic Guns in Silver Spring and Rockville, said he recently turned down a large ammunition order from a university police department because he could not fill it. The police department, which he declined to identify, needed the ammunition for qualifying officers on the shooting range, Schneider said. Montgomery County Police did not return calls about whether they have been able to get all the ammunition they need. Maryland State Police have had enough ammunition, so far, to supply the department and its training needs, although they have adjusted some training dates to cope with delayed supplies, said spokeswoman Elena Russo. “The solution to the supply problem, obviously, is building a two-year supply to offset any delayed shipments,” Russo said. As for the reason for the shortage, Schneider said, “I don’t know for sure why it’s happening.” National Shooting Sports Foundation spokesman Mike Bazinet said his organization believes “it’s a consumer-driven shortage” that stems from growing interest in shooting sports and people’s heightened concerns that they could lose access to some firearms and ammunition. Since the end of the year, there probably has been some hoarding, Schneider said, particularly in the wake of mass shootings that led to calls for more restrictions on guns and ammunition. “Butthatdoesn’tanswerwhy it hasn’t caught up by now,” he said, and distributors have told him they don’t know either. Schneider said he probably gets 10 percent of the ammunition he orders. At The Gun Rack in Burtonsville, owner Alan Rolinec
“It used to be people would get on you if you didn’t pick up your [spent shotgun] shells. [But] now people will pick them up for you.” Dick Chiapparoli, range coordinator, Izaak Walton League of America, Rockville Chapter estimated that shortages probably have caused him to have to turn away 75 percent of customers’ ammunition requests. “It’s the first time in 28 years I’ve been out of 9 millimeter [bullets],” Rolinec said, adding that when he gets a couple of cases, he sells it all within a couple of days. Finding popular handgun ammunition has become even harder than finding the right shotgun shells, sellers and buyers agreed. At Dick’s Sporting Goods in Gaithersburg, a sign posted on lightly stocked shelves cites “high demand” as the reason
the store “is limiting all rifle and pistol ammunition to three boxes per customer.” Sometimes lines at Dick’s are so long on delivery days that employees hand out numbers so that elderly or handicapped customers don’t have to stand in line, an associate whose name tag identified him as “Ron” confirmed. Pickings also have become slim for shotgun shells. “It used to be people would get on you if you didn’t pick up your [spent shotgun] shells, [but] now people will pick them up for you,” Chiapparoli said, because they are reloading and reusing them as new ones are harder to find. Now some reloading equipment and supplies are scarce, he said. Several ammunition manufacturers did not return calls about why ammunition supplies have lagged behind demand. Bazinet of the National Shooting Sports Foundation said the shortage seems more pronounced in some parts of the country, but that almost all ammunition manufacturers are gearing up to increase output. Remington Arms Company LLC, of Madison, N.C., announced in May that the company plans a major expansion of its Lonoke, Ark., ammunition manufacturing plant. The company said it wanted to increase availability and decrease waiting time.
trees proposed by builders. For lots with up to 6,000 square feet being developed, that would mean planting three shade trees instead of one. For an area up to 40,000 square feet, 15 shade trees would be required, not six. Shade trees are those that grow taller than 50 feet. S. Robert Kaufman, a spokesman for the MarylandNational Capital Building Industry Association, disputed the county’s assertion that only one in three trees will survive. The association is a nonprofit trade organization representing builders in Maryland. Citing studies in Philadelphia and New York, he said trees have beenprovensurvivetheirfirstyear at a rate closer to 90 percent and that trees on private lots have a greater chance of surviving than those along streets because of the
care given by owners. Renewing Montgomery said in a July 2 letter to the council that about 85 percent of trees planted by builders actually survive. Kaufman said the legislation was emotionally, not rationally, crafted and is tantamount to a fee. If all of the required trees cannot be put on a given lot, the county will require builders to pay $250 per tree into a special fund for planting trees in other parts of the county where few currently exist. Kaufman said county regulationsforstormwatermanagement and other provisions in the new canopylaw—suchasthedistance between each tree — will make it nearly impossible for builders to put every required tree on a lot. As a result, they will have to pay the for the remaining trees in the form of a fee.
“Don’t make us try to meet a standard you already know we can’t meet on the site,” he said. When builders develop a site, Kaufman said, the county’s stormwater management law often requires removing all existing trees to make way for dry wells and other means of containing runoff. It can cost as much as $8,000 to remove an existing mature tree. Builders value trees as much as county lawmakers and environmental activists do, Kaufman said, as they add value to a site. If the county wanted to preserve its canopy, it would fix the stormwater regulations that require builders to remove existing trees and let more of the trees already in the ground stay there, he said.
MAPS
come residents who don’t show up on a data map, said Amanda Behrens, the senior program officer of the food mapping system at Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future. “A mile is a long way to travel carrying groceries,” Behrens said. “We’re looking at a quartermile, thinking of what’s a realistic, walkable distance.” Councilwoman Valerie Ervin said there is enough food to go around in the county, but it does not find its way to all of those who need it. “Lots of people who are struggling to put food on the table don’t have food readily available to them,” Ervin said. “They might find their way to food banks, but there’s not enough food there for them.” The map provides a crucial first step to geographically identifying food-scarce areas, Ervin said. Once that is done, she said, the council can move to fill those voids. The Center for a Livable Future has been creating a statewide food access map since 2007, Behrens said. It was published online in 2011 at Mdfoodsystemmap.org. Hoffman said the county’s map will go further. Maps are only the beginning of solving the food access problem, said Jenna Umbriac, director of nutrition programs
at Manna Food Center. Umbriac also serves on the Food Council and the work group. “I don’t think the food access problem ends with maps,” she said. “It begins with maps.” The important part is that the community acknowledges that some people in the county don’t have access to affordable food, Umbriac said. She said she noticed from preliminary maps that there is lack of food access in the southeastern part of the county. “Our role is to make people aware that there is a need,” Umbriac said. “If our maps give us an indication that there is food need, we can go in with volunteers and survey people’s perception of need. That could be an additional site for Manna or a distribution site for food.” At a July 23 council hearing, McGovern testified in favor of implementing the new technology and the county’s expenditure of the $70,000 as a budget amendment. County Council President Nancy Navarro (D-Dist. 4) of Silver Spring said at the hearing that she is “thrilled this project is coming forward.”
Continued from Page A-1 map as a key resource in that work. The food map will help members of the Montgomery Food Recovery Work Group find would-be wasted food and deliver it to those who in need, work group Chair Jacki Coyle said. Coyle is executive director of Shepherd’s Table, a Silver Spring nonprofit that serves the homeless. “We will be able to better serve people by providing nutritious food that would otherwise be thrown out,” she said. Coyle said the map will be “vital for the community to make sure people don’t go hungry,” and will show the county’s commitment to the recovery plan. “[The map] is a critical piece of the pie,” she said. The general definition of a food desert is a low-income area that does not have easy access to healthy, affordable food, according to the United States Department of Agriculture. This can include having to travel one mile to a supermarket in a suburban area or 10 miles in a rural area. That definition doesn’t tell the full story in suburban areas such as Montgomery County because it has pockets of lower-in-
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kalexander@gazette.net
Marlena Chertock, Katie Pohlman and Jacob Bogage contributed to this story
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