New Tree Protection Ordinance Adds Big Costs to New Housing

What is happening?

The City of Atlanta is rewriting its Tree Protection Ordinance. In pursuit of a city-wide forest canopy coverage of 50%, this new law will set new stricter requirements and higher fees for homeowners and property developers to maintain or remove trees on their land. The current draft is poised to add serious costs and hurdles to new affordable and market rate housing.

What are the changes?

The full ordinance can be found here: (TPO).

While there are a lot of changes, we are most concerned about:

• 6x increase in tree removal fees, a typical 3 ft diameter oak will cost $9,000 to remove. That will hurt incumbent property owners just as much as block new housing

• Elimination of “maximum recompense” allowing potentially limitless fees

• Expanded definitions of “priority” trees that must be saved or recompensed

• More land required to be set aside for trees, limiting housing density

• Stricter requirements for tree spacings & plantings

But don’t we need trees?

Yes, trees are good (we’ve written about this before)! But they need to be balanced against Atlanta’s need for housing as the center of a metropolis that continues to sprawl. As written, this new ordinance will raise the cost and complexity of building new homes. Not only will this make new housing less affordable, but it would also encourage developers to build in pro-development exurban counties instead, leading to even more sprawl, carbon emissions, and deforestation.

The city council even recognizes that the new ordinance will obstruct projects – that’s why they voted to exempt Beltline, ATL DOT, and other city departments from the Tree Ordinance!

What should we do instead?

Having a healthy tree canopy doesn’t have to come at the expense of housing affordability! There’s ways we can have both:

• Loosen zoning requirements to allow denser, more affordable, land-efficient housing such as apartments or townhomes.

• Allow more flexibility to replant trees instead of saving

• City should be proactive in planting trees on streets and neighborhoods instead of relying on private

What do we do about it?

Abundant Housing Atlanta is joining House ATL and others in calling for a phased approach to the new tree ordinance.

For Phase I, we support the adoption of partial revisions to the existing TPO as

follows:

• Increasing recompense fee and retaining a maximum recompense

• Create an arborist registration process and adopt the tree classification specifications

• Adopt 100% waiver of recompense fees for all affordable housing

Additional Phase II TPO revisions should wait until further study can demonstrate they will not present a burden to new affordable housing or general housing supply in Atlanta.

Tell Mayor Dickens and the City Council: Don’t Let Tree Protections Kill Housing Affordability!