• The city of Montpellier has decided to tighten the fines issued to indelicate companies, in the event of damage inflicted on the tree heritage, during works.

  • To implement its new measure, the city will rely on a new tool, the Tree Scale, developed by several associations and organizations.

  • Depending on the case, the value of trees can climb from 500 euros to several tens of thousands of euros (or more), for the most remarkable of them.

Builders, beware of the trees! The city of Montpellier (Hérault) has decided to toughen the fines issued to indelicate companies, in the event of damage inflicted on tree heritage, during work on the public domain. A similar device already existed in the Hérault capital, but the town will greatly increase the penalties, by multiplying them by two, on average.

“When a site is poorly managed, a tree is abused, either we do nothing, or we charge, says Michaël Delafosse (PS), the mayor of Montpellier.

Because it has been degraded, just as you can damage a floor or a shop window.

The best is not to degrade the plant heritage, to be careful.

But when that happens, you have to be able to fine.

"For the elected," a tree cannot be destroyed because we say "It is only a tree" ".

To implement its measure, the city will rely on a new tool, the “tree scale”, developed by several associations and organizations.

It makes it possible to know the value of the trees, and to assess the damage.

From 500 to several tens of thousands of euros

"It's a calculator, available free online", explains Alice Meyer-Grandbastien, researcher at Plante et Cité, an association for studies and experiments on nature in the city, which worked on the design of this calculator. "A form allows you to enter various criteria on the tree, such as the size of the crown [all the branches at the top] or its importance in the landscape, its endemic character for example, and the software calculates the value of the tree. in euros. »From 500 to several tens of thousands of euros, for the most remarkable.

"The objective is for the value to be relatively high, to make it possible to make as many people as possible aware of what a tree represents", continues Alice Meyer-Grandbastien.

The tool then makes it possible to assess the cost of the damage inflicted on the tree, indicating whether the damage concerns the roots, the trunk or the crown.

Or if the tree has fallen.

“Depending on the severity, the tool sets a percentage of the tree's value,” she notes.

"The owners are not the enemies of nature"

If the measure was approved by the city council, it was not unanimous. For the We Are movement, this device, "like a nod to the world of banking and insurance, only maintains this system where everything has a price, where everything is sold and bought, and which precisely puts undermining biodiversity ”. "It is a current, the monetization of nature, which consists in thinking that we will settle everything by giving a monetary value to nature", deplores Alenka Doulain (various left), who sits in the opposition. With such a device, continues the elected, "those who can afford to pay to pollute or to compensate do not change their practices."

For Laurent Villaret, president of the Federation of real estate developers of Occitanie, "the owners are not enemies of nature".

“To believe that they are there to cut down trees is to have understood nothing.

The first thing our customers ask for is a landscaped setting.

"Before penalizing the builders, Laurent Villaret would have liked to be put in place," with, also, those who build "," clear rules, which make it possible to protect the environment, but also to meet the demands for housing.

Punishing a client when there are no rules is useless.

However, if things are too restrictive, if we protect a very widespread species, hyper invasive or that we can easily replant, the risk is to fall into a logic of inconstructibility.

"

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  • Languedoc-Roussillon

  • Construction

  • Tree

  • Montpellier

  • Environment