No harm, no foul for cutting lots of trees in Lower Heidelberg

by Steve Reinbrecht

A company that removed trees from its Lower Heidelberg property won’t be penalized although it probably should have given the township and state a plan to control erosion from the work.

Those kinds of rules are important to keep soil from running into streets and creeks and avoid flooding problems on adjacent land, said Tammy Bartsch, office administrator of the Berks County Conservation District, speaking in general, not about this case.

To find out if the owner submitted an erosion-control plan for this project would require filing a right-to-know request, she said.

Alpha Property Investments LLC wants to build 28 housing units on the 8.75-acre parcel on Gaul Road, just north of Penn Avenue. It’s unclear when the trees were cut. Brush covers the sloping plot, which lies between a driveway to a parking lot behind the restaurant to the south and a home at 70 Gaul Road to the north.

In general, it’s OK to cut trees on your property, but if you’re working on more than 5,000 square feet [about 70x70 feet], you’re probably using heavy vehicles and need to submit a plan to control the erosion.

On April 18, Alpha Property gave the township a sketch plan for 28 semi-detached houses on the lot. It’s zoned residential. According to the planning maps, much of the land has slopes greater than 15 percent and some greater than 25 percent. Such steep slopes create erosion problems.

Greth Development Group Inc. sold the now-deforested land to Alpha Property for $220,000 in the fall of 2014. Berks County records show Alpha Property has a mailing address at 4226 Hill Terrace, Green Valley, which is owned by New Horizon Construction Inc., which shares an address with the Bar-B-Q Pit restaurant, 4741 Penn Ave., owned by Hippocrates “Lucky” Deligiannis, of Sinking Spring. 

Deligiannis said he plans to start building when he gets the approvals. He didn’t think the slopes would be a problem. He hung up when asked about the trees.

Though Alpha Property should not have removed the trees, the township does not expect to seek a penalty, township secretary Theresa Connors said. The land had been a tree farm, so the trees were grown to be cut, Connors said.

Here’s the state’s timber rule verbiage:

“Operations that will disturb 5,000 square feet or more of earth (~0.11 acres - which encompasses most harvesting operations) are required to develop a written Erosion and Sedimentation Control Plan (E&S Plan) that outlines the nature of the operation, the BMPs that will be used to prevent erosion and sedimentation, and a plan for how those BMPs will be maintained. The plan is required to be on site at all times during the operation.”