Palm Beach Property Owners Chafe Under Tree Replacement Rule

Property owners in Palm Beach County, Fla. thought things were bad enough when thousands of trees were knocked over and destroyed when Hurricane Frances passed through town.

When the storm passed, residents knew they'd be paying thousands of dollars to have the downed trees removed. So when county officials said local development ordinances required them to replace the trees in short order, at a cost of $250 to $300 each, they were flabbergasted.

?EUR??,,????'??We just spent thousands of dollars to take trees out and now they want us to spend thousands of dollars to replant them? That's ridiculous,?EUR??,,????'?? Al Grubow of the Boca Chase homeowners' association told the Palm Beach Post. ?EUR??,,????'??I'll fight it.?EUR??,,????'??

The ruling hasn't been overturned, but residents have wrested one concession from the county. Associations and individual home owners will be allowed to replace large trees with single, less expensive juvenile trees, instead of multiple small trees or single bigger ones as the rule formerly required.

And there's one more bit of silver lining-many of the downed trees were listed as invasive under another county ordinance, and were to have been removed by 2012. Now hundreds of the invasive melaleuca, Brazilian pepper and schefflera trees have been removed years early by the hurricane.