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By: Geraldine H.
The City Council has lately been working on a revision for new rules regarding trees. The city of Atlanta has a tree protection ordinance to protect the Atlanta urban forest. For example, in the current tree ordinance, you have to have a permit to cut down a tree and if you don’t get a permit, you get a fine. Without it developers would be able to cut down trees without a permit and decrease Altlanta’s urban forest. The tree ordinance would help protect trees and help our urban forest.
Now, the city council is looking to make changes to the current TPO. “The city’s most recent attempts to revise the tree ordinance date to 2014. Atlanta revisited the issue in 2019 and draft revisions finally landed in the city council’s lap in March 2020 — just as the coronavirus pandemic began.” said the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. While this article has been around awhile, revisions are still being made and people are still suggesting amendments.
“Many residents are concerned that trees are being removed on residential lots just to install dry wells or other stormwater management devices. Additionally, many designers of commercial stormwater facilities shy away from using trees in vegetated “Green Infrastructure” which provide more benefits than underground or non-vegetated facilities.” said the Atlanta Tree Protection Ordinance Summary of Revisions. The TPO will help with this problem by putting new limits on tree removal and “trees planted in a vegetated green stormwater infrastructure facility will be counted as two trees of the size planted for Replacement and Recompense requirements. ” said the Atlanta Tree Protection Ordinance Summary of Revisions.
While many people think this new TPO will help the urban forests, some people are having doubts and are wondering if the new TPO will hurt and instead of helping Atlanta. “Category 4 and 5 trees would be assessed more than they are currently being assessed. All the other trees in categories; 1, 2, and 3 would be assessed the same or less, meaning that developers might be paying less recompense overall with this new tree value matrix,” Anthony explained in an email.This means that they think that older and stronger trees would be looked at more and cared for differently than newer, smaller trees meaning that the new trees would die and wouldn’t be replaced properly.
In conclusion, the TPO still has a long way to go, and the city council still needs to approve things. There are still many things that need to be checked and can be added. For example, the new ordinance is working more to protect trees that do more for our environment and trees that have historical significance. I think that the TPO will help protect trees, that help us protect our future.
Sources:
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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