TORPY: Progress on Atlanta’s Tree Ordinance is like a slow growing oak

The leaves have changed six times since then. I wrote that in 2019.

The issue largely went dormant but returned last week when the City Council voted to temporarily exempt the city, the Beltline and the Path Foundation from parts of its own tree ordinance. City officials want to speed up infrastructure projects and realize it’s easier to get stuff done without pesky rules in the way.

The exemption was to be a stopgap until a new law is enacted.

Proposals for an entirely rewritten law were supposed to come before a council committee this week, but last-minute, backdoor negotiations may lead to more delay.

Naturally, the tree huggers and tree choppers are at odds. Also, tree activists are split. And the city, is, well, the city.

There have been endless debates about how far the ordinance should delve, about how “priority” trees should be preserved, how much it should cost to cut a tree and how and where they should be replanted.

Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC

Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC

By comparison, negotiating the Treaty of Versailles was a cinch.

The working ordinance — some 50 pages, depending on your font — is all encompassing and sometimes obtuse.

Here’s a passage determining how to save trees on single family lots:

“If the total DBH (diameter at breast height) inches of priority trees make up 25% or less of the DBH inches of all priority and non-priority trees on-site, priority trees must be preserved according to table TPO-2, and at least 50% of the total DBH inches of non-priority trees must also be preserved in order to meet the priority tree preservation standard.”

There are three main components in the ordinance: required replanting, tree preservation and “recompense.”

For years, Chet Tisdale, a member of the Atlanta Tree Conservation Commission, has complained the tree law is nothing but a “clear-cutting ordinance.”

Developers simply must pay a “recompense fund,” which is about $1,000 for a tree that’s 30″ at chest height. It’s easier to clear and grade a lot to build a home than to save trees.

The number of healthy trees cut in Atlanta since before COVID has doubled from 7,800 in 2019 to 16,400 in 2023. Also, the number illegally cut increased from 600 in 2019 to almost 1,300 in 2023. If it’s not too bad a sin to get caught, why not try?

Tisdale contends the “priority tree preservation standard” is the most important aspect of the proposed ordinance. It would have city arborists work with developers or homeowners on the front end of the building process to save existing trees. For instance, the planned footprint of a house could be moved on the property to save some standing trees.

But, he said, the city’s planning department, which was in favor of, and even helped draw up, the ordinance, is now backing off “preservation.” It turns out the developers have been lobbying them. The city now wants to “beta test” that part of the ordinance before enacting it, he said. This means stalling it. Or killing it.

Tisdale argued the preservation process was negotiated for five years.

“It’s a plan to delay the ordinance,” he said. “I was an environmental lawyer for developers. I know what developers do.”

“Once you cut down a mature tree, it takes years before you recover,” Tisdale said, adding that city officials “need to step up as public servants.”

Planning Commissioner Jahnee Prince said the city has not withdrawn tree preservation from the ordinance.

But, she added in a statement, the department is also rewriting the zoning ordinance and there are “potential conflicts” between the two. Her department “is considering testing the two new ordinances together to ensure that there are no further conflicts. The (tree and zoning ordinances) must work together seamlessly.”

DeLille Anthony, an Atlanta resident who runs the Tree Next Door, agrees with Tisdale, to a point.

“Is the tree preservation standard the hill you want to die on?” she asked. She noted arguments against the ordinance are that it is “hard to understand and to implement.”

“It’s great in theory. In the real world, it’s a different thing,” Anthony said.

Anthony called the recompense fee “a joke.” The fee was determined in 2001 and is $100 per downed tree, plus $30 an inch at chest height. The plan would be to raise it to $117 an inch in 2026 and up to $260 in 2029.

Builder Jim Cheeks said he works in “disinvested transitional” neighborhoods and such changes to the ordinance could add “tens of thousands” of dollars to a home. He said this would limit affordability — although Tisdale said there’s a provision to give builders a break for affordable housing.

Credit: Courtesy of Chet Tisdale

Credit: Courtesy of Chet Tisdale

Greg Levine, head of Trees Atlanta, which plants trees on behalf of the city, said he was told by the city that preservation was “too cumbersome.”

“I understand that, but they didn’t come up with a better solution and they’ve had plenty of time,” he said.

He said the current recompense fee is outrageously low, adding it costs $750 to $1,000 to plant and maintain a 3-inch tree. That is currently what developers pay to cut down a 30-incher.

“I’m ready for changes to be made; this has been going on for a decade,” Levine said.

Councilman Howard Shook, who’s been around for 24 years, noted it’s election year and council members face a dilemma.

“There’s the public support for being a tree hugger,” he said, “versus the campaign contributions you might leave on someone else’s table.”

Decisions. Decisions.