Trees are a curious commodity.

We islanders find them priceless – our gold

standard, it seems, is green – but we invariably wish that our neighbors had even more of them than we have ourselves. We hold them to be beyond mere monetary value, yet they bring out the economic determinist in us all.

A blessing, Bainbridge style:

May your property always be green (although I reserve the right to clearcut my own, to put up a house or improve my view).

Therefrom rolls the wave of sentiment against proposed regulations on Bainbridge shoreline properties, mandating, among other things, the retention or replanting of native vegetation. New restrictions on docks and bulkheads are also contemplated. As reported earlier, a hearing on the issues was held last week; the ship of state veered too close to the shoals of public offense, and did not find the tide in its favor.

Now, recognizing that what one does on one’s land may affect others (and vice versa), most folks are generally not opposed to the reasonable regulation of private property. Zoning and its variants give some predictability to land use, guiding us as we select property and protecting its value after we buy it.

But in this case, for the sacrifice of latitude in shaping one’s land – and enjoying the very quality for which waterfront property presumably was purchased – the regulations offer no clear return. Vague goals like “improving nearshore habitat” are tossed out, but hold no direct promise of young salmon suddenly finning past, doing their part to repopulate depleted runs.

For perspective, there are 2,354 miles of shoreline on Puget Sound, at least one third of which has been modified with bulkheads and other construction. Readers may question our idealism here, but we suggest that incremental restoration of Bainbridge Island’s 45 miles of shoreline to a pre-Columbian state is not, by itself, going to turn the tide for or against the Northwest’s iconic fish or any other species.

The salmon’s plight is a regional problem that must be approached on a region-wide basis. Stringent new regulations on shoreline use may well be called for; but until that case is clearly articulated by the state or federal government, most individual property owners simply aren’t going to listen.

In the meantime, planners here seem hopeful that new local regulations can sneak through unnoticed, or that somehow, fired in the crucible of public review, they will emerge burnished to gleaming desirability. Not likely – not when shoreline owners have a

half-million dollars or more tied up in their property.

Look at it this way: We may hold them priceless, but nobody ever bought a waterfront home for a view of the trees.