Charlotte woman starts petition to prevent Heritage Tree from being removed

CHARLOTTE — A woman in southeast Charlotte is trying to prevent a massive tree on her property from being chopped down.

Amanda Davis said one of her Heritage Trees could be chopped down because of a sidewalk the City of Charlotte wants to build. She started a petition and put up signs to help save the tree.

“The city wants to build a sidewalk along Margaret Wallace Road,” she said.

“The issue is that I have a Willow Oak tree over 100 years old that’s in the way,” she added.

>> Watch the full report from Channel 9′s Almiya White in the video at the top of the page.

In a statement, the City of Charlotte said property owners or a public entity are allowed to remove trees if they meet certain requirements, including obtaining a permit.

Read the full statement below:

“The City is required to mitigate for the removal of heritage trees. Public entities are required to enter into formal mitigation agreements with the City’s Urban Forestry Group stating how the entity will mitigate for the removal of heritage trees. Mitigation agreements are required to meet the intent and spirit of the heritage tree requirement and may include alternate mitigation requirements in addition to the standard mitigation requirements in the Charlotte Tree Ordinance. City staff is currently working on finalizing agreements with the General Services Department.

“For this specific project, one or more mitigation trees shall be planted within the project footprint when feasible to mitigate for the removal of each heritage tree. If planting within the project footprint isn’t feasible, then the mitigation planting shall occur off-site. This project may also submit a mitigation fee if feasible but isn’t required to. If no mitigation payment is submitted by the project, then a minimum of three mitigation trees shall be planted by the project for each heritage tree removed.”

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