It’s my tree. Why can’t I cut it down?
6/12/202625 min
Can the government stop you from cutting down your own tree? In many towns and cities these days, removing a tree now requires a permit. You might have to pay a fee, or promise to plant replacement trees. But sometimes, the city won't let you cut down the tree at all, even a tree in your own backyard.
That's because trees are important for air quality, for flood control, and for public health. They help keep neighborhoods cool on hot days. But some think that tree protection laws have gone too far — that they might even be unconstitutional.
On today's episode, it's the latest showdown between property rights and local zoning laws. Typically, towns and cities enjoy a lot of power when it comes to zoning and permits. They can ban certain types of buildings. They can make you paint your house a certain color. But can they make it illegal to cut down a tree? And what does it mean to "own" a piece of property anyway?
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This episode of Planet Money was hosted by Jeff Guo and Amanda Aronczyk. It was produced by James Sneed and Emma Peaslee, edited by Jess Jiang, and fact-checked by Vito Emanuel. It was engineered by Robert Rodriguez and Cena Loffredo. Alex Goldmark is our executive producer.
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Transcript preview
First 90 secondsSpeaker 10:00
This message comes from Avalara. What's it like running a business with Avalara? No thinking about tax and compliance. It's handled, calculating, filing, validating accurately and audit defensively. Avalara, agentic tax and compliance with confidence.
Malcolm Gladwell0:16
[instrumental music] This is Planet Money from NPR.
Geoff Guo· Host0:21
The day that Sarah Bond finally became a homeowner, she'd almost given up. It was 2021. The housing market was red hot. She and her husband, Joel, kept getting outbid. They were starting to think maybe their family would never have a place they could make their own, a place where she and Joel could plant blueberry bushes, a place where their daughter, Jojo, could raise baby ducks and chickens. Then she got a call from her realtor.
Sarah Bond· Guest0:45
She left a voicemail, and she said, "Congratulations." And I was like, "What?" [laughs] And I just started, like... I was like, "No way." And I told my husband. He was like, "Are you serious? Are you kidding?"
Amanda Aronczyk· Host1:00
[laughs] The house that was now their house was white with black trim, two stories tall. It was nicer than she ever thought she could afford, and it was located in their dream neighborhood on a tree-lined street in Southwest Portland. She remembers when they first went to visit the area.
Sarah Bond· Guest1:17
And as soon as we open the doors of the car, we just hear, like, an eruption of children laughing and screaming, and, and there were just all these kids, like, rolling down the hill, and they're just, like, tumbling all over