County supervisors in a 4-1 vote Tuesday reiterated their support in voting for a strict tree-cutting ordinance in light of the controversy at Ridgemark Golf & Country Club.
Supervisors gave a stamp of approval after planning commissioners made some revisions—including the elimination of a sunset clause, making it permanent—to a previously OK’d draft. Supervisor Margie Barrios dissented on the vote as she did when the board gave an initial approval in February before allowing revisions from planning commissioners.
Supervisors in early December extended a prior 45-day moratorium against cutting mature trees by more than 10 months.
The ordinance they initially approved in February would have extended the ordinance through 2020, the sunset date, while laying out a series of guidelines and exemptions as they relate to cutting mature trees.
The issue has evolved following tensions in the gated Ridgemark community over the golf course owner’s cutting of trees on the course last year in a move that angered many residents there.
The Ridgemark Homes Association filed a lawsuit in April against JMK Golf LLC – the company that acquired the Ridgemark Golf & Country Club golf course in the spring of 2009 – asking for a restraining order that would keep the company from cutting down trees on the golf course in front of their houses. The 125 trees in question were in the fallow part of the golf course, which employees stopped watering in July when Ridgemark closed some of its fairways and moved from a 36-hole course to an 18-hole facility.
The new ordinance will ban cutting of mature trees with few exemptions in the law.
