5.4.8 (3) Coastal Commission Implementation Plan If there is a native tree or trees adjacent to any construction on your property, then, as an owner, you must hire an arborist to be present on site during all construction activity to make sure you don’t hurt the tree. The arborist is empowered to stop construction.
One report states that an arborist costs $80 per hour, times eight hours, equals $640 per day. And $640 times 20 days equals $12,800 a month, times 12 months equals $153,600 per year. At that rate, maybe the owner should provide a chair for the arborist, or do they sit in the trees?
Read all about it in the 324-page Coastal Commission LIP (local implementation plan). Get your copy of the Coastal Commission LIP by writing to the California Coastal Commission, 89 S. California Street, #200, Ventura, CA 93001-2801.
Find yourself in the plan. Everybody already living here is impacted by the LIP. Think your property is safe because it is already built? It isn’t. The plan applies to all existing structures (Section 13.5 A-H). We are all non-conforming structures in the eyes of the new plan. Thus, any time you want any kind of work done on your property that requires a permit, you can be required to comply with every demand and standard of the LIP. There is no way you can hide, there is no way you can comply. Heaven help those of us with modest means.
The devil of our destruction is in the details.
Georgianna McBurney