At his weekly press conference, Mayor D.C. Reeves announced an ordinance will be on the upcoming City Council agenda to add a layer of accountability to tree companies.
Reeves said contractors cutting down heritage trees at the request of homeowners spurred the City to draft the ordinance. The only authority the City currently has is to levy fines against the homeowners.
“I believe tree contractors who work in the city and have the business tax receipt and license to be able to work in the city should have the expertise when they are called by a homeowner, who may or may not know the rules,” Reeves said. “That is your business, that is your profession to know the rules.”
Punitive measures for contractors in the ordinance include written notice, remedial work and stop work orders. Reeves said the punishment levied will be based on the tree. The punishment for cutting down a heritage tree, for example, will be significant in comparison to a younger tree without historical value. The ordinance permits only arborists to prune and remove heritage trees.
“This is not a foreign concept for anybody who has a business,” Reeves said. “You have rules that if you are not held accountable to, whether it be the local level or the state level or the federal level, if you continue to violate those rules you are not going to be in business anymore, and I don’t think the tree contractors should be immune from being professionals in their field.”
Reeves said the goal is to hold everyone involved accountable and reduce the interactions with homeowners who claim ignorance after the fact.
“I just really considered it disjointed to say when a tree is cut down that the homeowner is solely responsible,” he said. “The normal procedure has been for that homeowner, or property owner, to then reach out to the administration or me personally and say, ‘well, I didn’t know,’ even though it clearly is in black and white what the policy is. Sometimes they may be telling the truth and sometimes they may not be, but if you have a license in this city to cut down trees, you should know the rules on what trees should be able to be cut down or not.”
Reeves said a building height ordinance will be on the same agenda. The ordinance allows building height bonuses similar to density bonuses for properties.
“It gives us the ability to offer verticality as an asset to help us better the community, generate revenue, to take on affordable housing projects, things like that,” Reeves said.
AIRPORT TRAFFIC
An estimated 43,000 passengers went through Pensacola International Airport during Thanksgiving weekend. That marked a 15.3% increase from last year.
An increase in passengers at the airport has been a common theme throughout the year.
“I don’t care what weekend, what month, you look at, when you compare 2022 to 2023, it isn’t 5%. It’s 12, 13, 15% more throughputs,” Reeves said.
The increased number of passengers puts a strain on available parking at the airport. Reeves said one possible contingency plan being discussed is shutting in staff from an outside location. He said plans remain in place to add 400-plus parking spaces in the spring.
LEGISLATIVE REQUESTS
Reeves confirmed the City officially submitted its legislative requests for the airport terminal, Baptist Hospital and Bay Bluffs Park.
The City is asking for $23 million for the terminal and $20 million for demolition of Baptist Hospital. Reeves said the City is requesting $2.2 million to renovate Bay Bluffs, which has been closed since March.
“We weren’t going to go a legislative session without at least taking the opportunity to see if we could get some funding there,” Reeves said of the park.