Urban Forestry Profile: Prof. Buck Abbey

By Pepper Provenzano

Buck Abbey has what some folks call moxie, but his most recent project - perhaps his most ambitious - sounds elemental.

"The only design professionals that work without having a code to follow are landscape architects," Abbey says.

It's not enough that he teaches at Louisiana State University, researches, writes grants, and speaks on urban forestry and landscape architecture issues nationwide.

It's not enough that he runs a thriving landscaping and design firm, Abbey Associates, Inc., and operates an urban forestry research website.

Now the author of the standard reference text, U.S. Landscape Ordinances, is forming a national coalition to draft a "Standard Landscape Code for American Communities."

"It's going to happen,'' says the professor who studied at Michigan State University and Harvard, and he should know, having focused on landscape ordinances for the past twelve years. "There should be a national code for landscape ordinances and tree ordinances," he says. "And it's important for tree ordinances and landscape ordinances to merge and become one."

Tree-support groups and landscape-support groups must work together, not separately, he adds.

A Brief Perspective

Land ordinances were scarce before the 1960s, although we can track their history to 1700 in this country, Abbey notes. With the development of U.S. urban areas, city arborist organizations emerged in the 1940s and 1950s. So, with increased population growth and the inevitable expansion of populations centers, "at some point it's just logical that someone write a standard landscape code."

The Standard Building Code is actually a group of codes or guidelines targeting a host of trades, including electricity, plumbing, structure, and concrete, all related to the building environment. "But they all stop at the edge of the building, while the landscape we live in extends to the property line," says Abbey.

"So there's a great area of the landscape that's not covered by any code," say Abbey. "I call that the missing 5 percent of the Standard Landscape Code."

The Southern Building Code Congress International has been publishing the Standard Code since its development around 1940, says the professor. "But landscape codes didn't evolve until the 1960s, so even today, I don't think the Southern Building Code Congress quite understands them. They say it's a local issue, but it shouldn't be any more of a local issue than a standard electrical code.

Addressing the Basics

"These codes are really very basic," Abbey says, mostly addressing life-safety issues like drinking water protection, underground irrigation, and erosion protection. "That's what the Standard Building Code was set up to address. We don't want it too detailed to be workable. Not too complicated, not too general, but something we can grow into the next century and beyond."

Abbey doesn't expect builders or developers to oppose establishment of a code for landscapes. He says "the biggest struggle will be convincing the Southern Building Code Congress International to include the landscape code in the Standard Building Code.

The Southern Building Code Congress International has given Abbey the authority to model his project after the structure of their code and reproduce part of their copyrighted information.

Opening Up the Dialogue

"It's an overlooked area," says Abbey, and once it is discussed widely and well understood, "where everyone can see the benefits in this," the code people will want to make the information available to every community across the country, "so what happens in many small towns, rather than creating their own building code, in municipal ordinances they just refer to the Standard Building Code."

Abbey's national coalition will address the issue over a two-year period. Anyone interested may contact Prof. Buck Abbey by email at aaincla@aol.com, or by calling 225-388-1434. The coalition is expected to be formed by April 2000.

To learn more about existing landscape ordinances, visit the LSU Green Law Web Site at www.design.lsu.edu/greenlaws or link through www.treelink.org to Links.