When Craig Anderson went in search of a home, he knew what he wanted—modern construction with mature trees.

“My line was I didn’t want a vinyl house in a cow pasture,” he said.

The local electrical design engineer eventually found what he was after. He purchased a 1500 square foot house in the Rocky Chase subdivision near Roper Mountain Road. He can thank the developer and builders who worked around mature growth when the property was first developed about 15 years ago.

The housing market is being influenced today by what some say is a growing number of homebuyers, like Anderson, who are spurning barren suburbia for lots with a shady canopy.

Building Greener Neighbors, a publication of the National Association of Homebuilders, reports that “lots with trees sell for an average of 20 to 30 percent more than similarly sized lots without trees.”

An America Lives survey of the nation’s largest homebuilders found that an increasing number of homebuyers rated wooded tracts, nature trails and green space as a high priority.

Property owners are also driving a national movement to adopt public policy that bans the conventional practice of clear cutting trees on large tracts of land.

There is presently a grassroots effort promoting a tree ordinance for Greenville County. The measure, which is currently under consideration by County Council, could ultimately result in regulating clear cutting on large commercial and residential developments.

Saving trees

In the meantime, a handful of local developers motivated by their personal values and an identified a market niche, are going it alone

Caleb Freeman is betting up to 600 area families will pay a premium for the privilege of living in nature’s splendor.

He is poised to begin construction of Acadia, a planned development community to be built on 300-acres of wooded, family-owned property on the banks of the Saluda River about 4 miles from Piedmont. Homes of various sizes will be priced from about $150,000 to more than $450,000.

About one-third of the property is to be set aside for green space and homes will be sited to protect existing trees. Homeowners also will be asked to sign covenants restricting the size and variety of trees they can cut down.

David Black of Langston-Black Real Estate has temporarily transplanted mature trees to the edge of a piece of commercial property he’s developing on Wade Hampton Boulevard. The trees will be replanted at that site once construction is completed.

Black has little use for the ornamental landscaping that dots many of the area’s commercial projects. Bradford pear trees have a short life expectancy and crepe myrtles provide little shade, he said.

“We just hate to see beautiful things destroyed if we believe there is economic value [in preserving them],” he said.

Craig Rice calls bulldozing trees a “pet peeve” of his. Rice, who owns Tree Spaders of Greenville, works with Black and other developers to transplant mature growth. He has heavy-duty machinery that enables him to relocate trees of between 6 and 10 inch calibers.

He transplanted 3,000 trees last year and only had to replace five that died.

Rice said a tree can be moved on site for between $250 and $400, depending upon the number of trees to be relocated.

“Usually it costs as much to move a tree as to bring a new tree on site from a landscaper,” he said.

Yet most of his work remains out of town in places like Atlanta and Brevard, N.C. where tree ordinances and enforcement are more rigorous.

“A lot of developers are ignorant,” he said. “They don’t know big trees can be moved.”

Even where tree ordinances are in place, such as the city of Greenville, enforcement is often weak, discouraging developers from seeking creative alternatives to tree removal, he said.

Economic value

On a rainy morning Freeman provides a tour of the largely undisturbed land canopied with beech, sycamores, river birch, hickory, maple, poplar and oak trees that will soon be Acadia.

For 14 years the Greenville native practiced real estate law in Fairfax, Va., a community with one of the country’s most restrictive tree ordinances. It left an impression.

“You want man to come into Mother Nature’s environment, but you have to be thoughtful about how you do it,” he said.

Freeman estimates the additional time and expense of working around nature will cost him 20 to 25 percent more than traditional residential subdivisions that clear cut trees.

“That’s a premium I’m paying over the typical developments,” he said. “Will the market reward that when it comes time to sell lots?”

Freeman admits he can’t see the future. But his instincts tell him benefits of one kind or another will accrue.

“At the end of the day,” he said, “it will be a better development.”

Black says it’s difficult to quantify the value mature trees add to a property.

“That is more art than science,” he said.

But he does know it’s less expensive to transplant existing trees than to buy new ones from a nursery off site.

Coleman Shouse, whose company Lazarus-Shouse Communities builds new houses in Greenville and Spartanburg counties, acknowledges mature trees are a valuable resource but says a price tag can’t be placed on their value.

“It’s way too simplistic to say mature trees are worth x,” he said.

“Are [real estate] prices on Augusta Road $200 per square foot because of trees or because its Augusta Road?”

Stewart Rivers, owner of Rivers Appraisal Services agrees, saying there is no place on appraisal forms for landscaping.

“The only way we can add for lot value is if we can prove that a lot in a subdivision has sold for more because of trees. And that has never happened,” said Rivers who has been in business since 1978.

He points to Five Forks Plantation in Simpsonville where some lots have mature trees and some don’t. All are priced at $90,000, though some may eventually sell for more but only because they offer access to a lake, he said.

Economic costs

Lazarus-Shouse views existing trees as an expense rather than an amenity. The reason, says Shouse, is small lots that leave little room to navigate around during construction.

When trees are left standing, they often die as the land is being graded, he said.

There are also maintenance costs associated with mature trees that property owners and taxpayers may overlook. The city of Charlotte spends $1.8 million per year maintaining more than 120,000 trees on public property, according to its head arborist, Don McSween.

For those reasons, Shouse says, saving trees has never been a standard for housing construction in the area. Even the Augusta Road neighborhood that is today prized for its mature trees, was barren farm land when houses were first built there, he said.

Instead, Shouse’s company chooses to plant new trees in subdivisions. He prefers the willow oak for its extensive canopy and long life expectancy.

“If a person wants mature trees, they’ll go to a [neighborhood] that’s 40 or 50 years old that didn’t have mature trees when they were built,” he said.

But that presents a problem for consumers who either can’t afford the housing costs of more established neighborhoods and/or desire newer construction.

Anderson said he faced exactly that predicament during his housing search. He found large wooded lots in Spaulding Farms but the homes cost more than he wanted to pay.

He was told that builders can’t save trees on smaller lots. His one-fifth acre lot in Rocky Chase proved that wisdom wrong.

“I think people just accept what they get,” he said.

There may be maintenance costs, but he says his trees save him money by providing shade that reduces the cost to cool his house during the long, hot summer months.

“Who can afford to wait 30 years on trees to grow?” he asked.

Contact Gary Hyndman at 679-1226 or ghyndman@greenvillejournal.com.

-acadia-

For more information on Acadia, or to set up an interview with Mary and Caleb Freeman, please contact the Acadia Marketing Group at 864.304.1293 or email tim@Acadiamg.com.
www.AcadiaSC.com