Surrey city planners are stumped as to how a developer who was permitted to remove 39 trees for a housing project ended up clearcutting a swath of land ? including part of a park, a federally protected stream and private properties ? in what a neighbour has described as ?like a curtain going up on a horror movie.?
A lone scraggly cottonwood is the only tree left on the property at 5904 144th St., which is littered with large logs of cedar, hemlock and Douglas fir.
?It is absolutely irresponsible; it?s outrageous that someone would go into private property and into a riparian area and cut trees down,? Surrey Mayor Dianne Watts said Friday. ?We need to send a very strong message that this is not an acceptable practice in our city.?
View photos of the clearcut here
In August the city issued a permit to a numbered company, allowing it to cut down the 39 trees so four homes could be built on the lot in Newton. According to the city permit, the owner of the property is 0749813 BC Ltd., with the directors listed as Bhupinder Singh Bal and Gurcharn Singh Brar. The Vancouver Sun was unable to contact anyone from the company at the time of going to press.
Last weekend city officials were alerted by neighbours alarmed at the scale of the clearcutting going on, and a stop-work order was issued immediately. However the damage had been done.
Neighbour Chris Simmons said he was stunned to see contractors ripping out the forest next to his home on 59A Avenue, and whooping and hollering every time they felled a tree. At one point, a tree looked as if it was about to fall on his roof and he contemplated fleeing the house with his wife and 16-month-old daughter, and he said his neighbour was told by the contractors to move her car in case it got hit.
Contractors also drove a steam shovel across a federally protected creek, leaving dead trees in its wake, before continuing cutting into private property, Simmons said.
?It?s like they got some guys out of a bar, gave them a chainsaw and said ?hey, do you want to cut down some trees?? Simmons said. ?It was like a curtain going up on a horror movie, there was nothing left.?
Don Luymes, acting general manager with Surrey?s planning department, said the city is surveying the damage and while officials don?t know exactly how many trees were cut down, the number is believed to be substantial.
?I?d say it was at least double the amount of area cleared than what was permitted,? he said.
Luymes said he did not know which tree removal company the owner had hired to clear the trees but noted the developer is responsible for the clearcut.
?We don?t know if this was a case of negligence,? he said. ?Who knows whether it was ignorance or wilful but now we are just trying to figure out how many trees were removed.?
Watts said she expects heavy fines, which could be as high as $10,000 per tree, to be levied against either the developer or contractor, depending on who?s found to be responsible. She said there will also be a ?significant mitigation package? for the city park, the federal salmon-bearing stream and the private properties affected.
An arborist is surveying the site, she added, to determine whether mature trees can be planted to mitigate the damage. ?I understand some of trees were fairly significant, and we?ll do our best to ensure they get replaced,? she said.
She noted a contractor involved in a similar situation a number of years ago with the city is no longer welcome to do business in Surrey.
The Department of Fisheries and Oceans has launched a separate investigation into the incident because the developer also cut into the setback of a tributary of Hyland Creek.
Most of the trees cut down were part of a greenbelt that would have buffered the existing small residential subdivision in the area from a Vesta Properties 144-unit townhouse complex under development across the creek.
Kent Sillars, president of Vesta, said his company had bought a piece of land from the numbered company with the understanding that the trees would remain. His project has not only been delayed, he said, but has been altered from what was originally promised because the greenbelt has been chopped down.
?(The clearcut) completely trashed our project,? he said. ?Trees are sacred in Surrey, you don?t do that.?
Another neighbour, Hector Leung, said he?s concerned about the wildlife that fled as the trees fell. Families of raccoons, skunks and possums had lived in the forest next to his home, he said.
?I haven?t seen any of them since,? said Leung. ?We knew they were planning to build houses there so it was just a matter of time (before the animals were displaced). But they went way further than (they were allowed).?
Simmons agreed, and said he hopes the developer doesn?t profit from the debacle.
?We?re sad, not angry,? he said. ?The damage is done.?
View photos of the clearcut here
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