REHOBOTH BEACH, Del. - Rehoboth Beach has not updated its tree ordinance in over fifteen years. The current ordinance is complicated and resulted in unnecessary stress for people who live in Rehoboth Beach.
Stephanie Smith, who lives in Rehoboth Beach, constantly worries about a large tree in her backyard due to the current ordinance's rules regarding replacement of trees which forced homeowners to replace a dead tree with trees that took up the same amount of space.
“If you had an old oak, you might have to replace it with four other trees, even though you already had five on your property.”, explained Stephanie.
Homeowners felt this code was punishing them for things out of their hands.
Rehoboth Beach is now working on replacing this old tree code with a new one that would make for less stress for homeowners, while continuing to maintain Rehoboth Beach’s well-known tree canopy.
“We have an approved species list for city requirements, we pretty much doubled that. We added a couple more flexible reasons to remove trees based on size and nuisance species and then we simplified a lot of things, like what actually is required.”, explained Liz Lingo, the city of Rehoboth Beach arborist.
The new ordinance will be up for a vote at the commissioner's meeting on June 16th. To read the proposed code change, click the link here.
