Page 12 - CooperatorNews NY April 2022

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MACKOUL RISK SOLUTIONS Are you keeping up with safety measures to protect your HOA’s sensitive data? Get an Instant Quote! 25 Nassau Lane Island Park, NY 11558 516-431-9100 www.mackoul.com plants and design.” Keep the Dirt Clean According to certifi ed landscape designer is to help reduce the likelihood of \[limb\] fail- Maria von Brincken of Sudbury, Massachu- setts, if a resident of a homeowners associ- ation—a complex of attached townhouses don’t hit buildings.” where each unit has a little plot in front, for example—wants to undertake a project to install planters or some shrubs on their plot, York and other big cities, a street tree and the fi rst step is to review the association’s gov- erning documents and check with the board est one gets to “landscaping” in front of their and/or property manager to make sure the home. But trees in parks or on public side- proposed landscaping plan comports with walks or roads can’t be pruned by just any- the procedural and aesthetic parameters of one, and messing with or injuring a tree or the association. Aft er that, in order to really maximize the city. space while staying within the rules and regs, it’s usually best to work with a professional. “Everybody has a wish list,” says von Parks Department, are under a pruning or Brincken, “but a professional experienced removal contract with Parks, or possess an with HOAs will be able to work within the offi cial Tree Work Permit with expressed parameters of the as- sociation’s rules. Even if the space is not large, there are ways to create private areas for dif- ferent functions—for dining, for relaxing, or a place for the grand- children to play.” She notes that a patch of lawn or a small patio can be turned into an inviting, intimate en- vironment through the use of attractive con- tainers, furniture, and paving materials. New Jersey attorney Anne Ward of law fi rm Ehrlich, Petriello, Gudin, Plaza & Reed pruning on small tree branches that can be in Newark, New Jersey, reinforces the im- portance of reviewing your governing docs rest of the Seward Park Cooperative board before shoveling any dirt. “All unit owners are subject to the rules and regulations gov- erning the condominium property, and they their shareholders to get them involved in are assumed to have knowledge of those the care of the 280 trees on or adjacent to the rules,” she says. Th ese may include limits on co-op’s 13-acre property. Th ey already have the height, color, or number of plantings in shareholder-led groups that plant daff odils public-facing areas of units, or restrictions and other suitable bulbs (i.e., those that won’t on making any structural changes to limited interfere with the soil, compete for the tree’s common elements at all. Additionally, says Ward, “Under the the tree pits each spring, which brings to- New Jersey Condominium Act, …\[w\]hile gether the community’s multigenerational all owners are entitled to ‘use’ common el- ements, they are not entitled to unilaterally their Lower East Side neighborhood. exert control over a common interest to the exclusion of other owners of the association. on her co-op’s property because she also In fact,” she continues, “... unit owners are recently commissioned arbor services com- specifi cally prohibited from altering a com- mon element.” Laws in various municipalities may also condition, and care needs—something that limit one’s choices in terms of landscaping. had never been done in the co-op’s 65-year Carol Anastasio, a licensed horticultur- ist and landscape designer who also serves there has ever been an intensive understand- on her co-op board in Manhattan, explains ing of what our living infrastructure is,” she that in New York City, a tree is not allowed says. “So by doing the tree inventory, we to touch a residential building at any point. have a snapshot of the health of every single Th erefore, she says, the types of trees and where they are planted must take into con- sideration the size of the tree at its full ma- turity, and also the “developmental prun- ing—that’s in order to get it to grow the right way—and the maintenance pruning—which ure or confl ict with the infrastructure. A lot of money is spent on just making sure trees A Tree Grows in Manhattan For many multifamily buildings in New its two-by-two-foot bed might be the clos- its bed can have severe consequences in the “No one is allowed to perform any work on a tree unless they are employed by the consent from our Forestry Division,” says arborist Sam Bishop, Director of Education for Trees New York. “It is illegal and punishable by law for citizens to remove, kill, or damage a street or park tree, whether intentionally or ac- cidentally.” Trees New York has a Certifi ed Citizen Pruners program that trains lay arborists to do light reached from the ground. Anastasio and the \[full disclosure: this author is also a direc- tor there\] recently brought this initiative to nutrients, or grow too close to the trunk) in demographic and adds color and texture to Anastasio can cite the number of trees pany Bartlett Tree Experts to tag and cata- log them according to their type, age, size, history. “It was probably the fi rst time that CREATIVE... continued from page 1 “Th e key to planning for a successful landscape is researching and matching the plant material to your growing conditions.” —Nicholas Carnovale