Arboriculture & Urban Forestry 42(5): September 2016 Arboriculture & Urban Forestry 2016. 42(5): 285–300 285 Homebuilder Practices and Perceptions of Con- struction on the Wooded Lot: A Quarter Century Later Follow-Up Assessment Keith O’Herrin, Richard J. Hauer, William J. Vander Weit, and Robert W. Miller Abstract. Building new homes on wooded lots is common in the upper Midwest, United States. Existing trees are oſten leſt behind during construction to become part of the future landscape. A study conducted in 1980 found that homebuilders in Portage County, Wisconsin, U.S. generally had a poor understanding of how construction activities could impact the health of trees intended to be preserved. Research- ers replicated that study 27 years later by surveying homebuilders in the same region to see how their tree preservation knowledge and use of construction activities have changed during that time. The results indicate few construction activities changed significantly, showing that little has changed overall to improve tree preservation. Even though builders significantly improved their knowledge of the negative effects that storage of fill soil on roots poses to tree preservation, they also significantly increased usage of that very same activity. Builders almost never consulted a tree preservation expert and thought doing so was the least important activity when making tree preservation decisions. Interest in a tree preservation training workshop was limited. Unless pressured by consumer demand or regulation, builders will prob- ably not improve their tree preservation knowledge, change their construction activities, or include tree experts anywhere in the process. Key Words. Construction; Damage; Followup; Home Builders; Landscape; Perceptions; Public; Tree Experts. Over the last 30 to 40 years, new home construction within woodlots and forests has been a common practice within the United States (Matheny and Clark 1998; Johnson 1999; Fite and Smiley 2008b; Haines et al. 2011). Several factors explain this, including a society that has moved away from filling in wetlands, parcelization of larger into smaller lots through sub- division, and people’s preference for living within a forest (Hoff 1999; Haines et al. 2011; Haines and McFarlane 2012). People throughout the world have a desire to build homes in wooded environments, which sometimes causes conflict, such as competi- tion for space between existing trees and new con- struction when converting land from a forested to a developed environment (O’Callaghan and Lawson 1995; Konijnendijk 2008; Miller et al. 2015). Devel- opers and builders have responded to this desire by selecting forested sites for new home construction. In some cases, developers remove existing veg- etation and create an untreed lot. In other cases, when designing and planning the new home, it has become customary to leave forest trees to become part of the new landscape. If proper caution or care is not provided for these residual trees during devel- opment and construction, they may become very expensive liabilities as declining and dead trees near homes within a few years (Anderson and Barrows- Broaddus 1989; Day and Bassuk 1994; Hauer et al. 1994; Gilbert 1996; Koeser et al. 2013; Miller et al. 2015). During home construction, the damages to trees may include soil compaction, grade change, mechanical injury, root damage, improper prun- ing, and chemical changes in the soil due to spills or storage (Johnson 1999; Day et al. 2010a; Day et al. 2010b; Watson et al. 2014a). These potential dam- ages to trees are all avoidable if proper planning, design, and implementation occur (Johnson 1999; Galvin et al. 2000; Harris et al. 2004; Fite and Smiley 2008b; Fite and Smiley 2009; Watson et al. 2014a). Compounding this issue of damage during con- struction is the tendency for developers to harvest the best trees from the property for their timber value, rather than leaving areas of continuous or remnant forest intact (Harris et al. 2004; Miller ©2016 International Society of Arboriculture
September 2016
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