Residents press Atlantic Beach committee to block removal of mature maritime-forest trees at 1895 Hickory Lane

At its Dec. 17 Environmental Stewardship Committee meeting, residents urged the city to halt a proposed redevelopment at 1895 Hickory Lane that they said would remove about 13 mature trees and further erode the neighborhood's maritime forest.

Leanne Campbell, a 26-year resident of Hickory Lane, told the committee she was “speaking today as a concerned resident to express my strong opposition to the proposed development and tree removal of approximately 13 mature trees at 1895 Hickory Lane.” She said the existing tree canopy offers stormwater protection, wildlife habitat and community benefits that “no mitigation efforts can replace.”

Why it matters: Committee members said the property highlights limits in current protections for mature canopy in older Atlantic Beach neighborhoods and flagged several levers — code changes, zoning overlays and clearer variance criteria — that could reduce future losses.

The committee heard that the property has been listed for subdivision and that the city's tree-permit rules require mitigation based on species and trunk inches. A committee member who reviewed the permit application estimated the cash-mitigation option for that site at about $122,000 if the owner paid entirely in cash to the city. “$122,000 is what their mitigation would be if they did it all through cash payment to the city,” the speaker said.

Committee members and staff said the permit application should be posted to the city's tree-permit page imminently and urged residents to testify at a planned February workshop on Chapter 23, the city's tree ordinance. Amanda Askew, a city staff member, said February system updates should make the permit status easier to find online.

Several residents pressed for stronger enforcement and clearer rules. Todd Wiley, who said he has lived at 1855 Live Oak Lane for more than two decades, described subdivision-and-rebuild patterns as the primary cause of canopy loss in the area and urged “lobbying your city commissioners for even stronger ordinances.”

Another resident described a recent case in which a homeowner removed a large oak after getting an arborist's approval; she suggested conflicts of interest and inconsistent enforcement on tree permits. “There was another one just a few houses up ... he got the okay from the arbornist because it was a buddy of his,” she said.

The committee discussed practical responses: working directly with developers (one developer reportedly volunteered for a workshop), exploring a targeted overlay zone for maritime-forest neighborhoods, raising mitigation rates for new-construction tear-downs, and clarifying how variance requests to the building code can be used to preserve trees.

What's next: The committee urged residents to attend the February Chapter 23 workshop and to make public comment at upcoming commission meetings. Members said staff would continue negotiations with the developer and that any code changes would require commission action. The committee did not take a formal vote on the 1895 permit at this meeting.