Where this was said
The Secret Clear-Cut: 16 Acres Gone Overnight
At 10:19 · chapter starts 10:00
The smooth functioning of Canton's tree ordinance hits a wall in spring 2018, when a neighbor tips off the township that something has happened on the edge of town. Officials arrive to find nothing but mud and tree stumps: about 16 acres of woods have been clear-cut, more than 1,500 trees gone without a single permit. The property owners are local businessmen — a sign-company owner and two trucking-company operators — who, according to Ann Marie Graham Hudak, knew the rules. The township tells them to pay up: at a couple hundred dollars per tree, the remediation fee totals around $500,000. The response is swift and combative. 'They hung up and called a lawyer,' Hudak recalls. The lawsuits that follow quickly attract national attention from property-rights advocates who had been waiting for exactly this kind of test case.
Chance Weldon, a constitutional attorney at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, had been watching tree-protection ordinances spread across the country and believed they violated property rights. When he found the Canton, Michigan case, he offered to help for free — and it led to a landmark court win.
