Heritage Tree Preservation

This Live oak was preserved on the site of this Habitat for Humanity home. A site visit prior to construction identified the conflict of the proposed home site location and the location of the existing heritage tree. Under Charlotte County Code trees that are qualified as heritage trees are required to be preserved regardless of location. Fortunately on this site the owner was committed to saving the tree; the tree was barricaded throughout the construction process to protect its critical root zone from compaction and the house was relocated further back to the property's rear setback. This creates some heterogeneity of the buildings facing the street and reduces phenomena of one house looking into the windows of the next.

Instead of pouring a monolithic slab of concrete over the roots of the tree, the builder also included a series of two inch slots across the width of the driveway every 8', which are filled with coarse aggregate and allow air and water to drain to the root zone of the tree.

As you can see the new residents of this home value the shade of the tree and use to keep there vehicles cool. The County arborist and the new owners discussed creating a deep mulch area, away from the trunk of the tree, on which to park the cars and distribute the weight of the vehicles over a large area so as not to compact the roots of the tree and lose it.