The city is asking for feedback on the updated tree ordinance on Open City Hall. You have between now and May 2nd to submit your opinion. Here’s the intro from the Open City Hall forum…
The City of Decatur has released an updated draft of the Tree Conservation Ordinance, and we are coming back to you for feedback. Based on concerns voiced by the community, the City Commission requested that the ordinance proposed on January 21, 2014 be revised and brought back for consideration at a later date. A summary of the process was posted to the Decatur Minute blog in February. You can also see the Open City Hall topic here.
UPDATED Ordinance Materials:
- Updated Tree Conservation Ordinance draft
- Summary of Changes to Tree Ordinance
- Trees! Work Session Presentation April 2014
Feedback on the new ordinance will be accepted through May 2. Comments will be summarized and presented to the City Commission at a work session on Monday, May 5th. The Commission will then decide if they would like to make further amendments to the proposed ordinance.
“The Commission will then decide if they would like to make further amendments to the proposed ordinance.”
Oh, really? How about they should make bloody sure that the majority of COD residents even want them to pass such an ordinance?? Incidentally, the amended ordinance isn’t much better than the original. It still won’t keep developers & builders from stripping lots bare, and still puts the lion’s share of maintaining canopy on homeowners. I’m surprised no one has commented on this thread–maybe everyone’s just got tree ordinance fatigue (which, come to think of it, could work in the Commission’s favor–they’ll wear us down till we’re too weary to fight them anymore).
There’s nothing left to say here. If you have an opinion, make sure you submit it via the link. If the majority supports it, so be it; if not, then they should drop it. If they ignore the results, there’s a personal agenda that needs to be rectified accordingly.
Because nothing creates opportunity like unnecessary, expensive, divisive restrictions.
Not sure if the “open city hall” forum would be an accurate gauge of community sentiment, for one you have to be computer literate enough to turn off the cookies on your web browser to get it to work, for another you have to well off enough to have a computer…..
This is a good point. The neighbors I’ve talked to who are not online and involved in this discussion are generally even more strongly opposed to this misguided ordinance than those who are. Include them, and the result will be even more skewed to the opposed and strongly opposed responses.
I guess we just have different neighbors- over here we’re tired of seeing oversized boxes shoehorned into clear cut lots….and the people who don’t have great online access are the ones worried about being forced out….
Under the proposed new ordinance, property lots can still be clear cut as long as 50% of the canopy coverage for the lot comes from trees on neighboring properties, though a contribution to the tree bank for the canopy coverage that is lost must be made too in this scenario (with no new tree plantings required!). (See Table 1/residential on pg. 8 of the proposed ordinance- that section says that up to 50% of the canopy replacement requirement may be paid to the tree bank; canopy measurements include neighboring lot trees that extend over your own lot).
As regular readers know, I am not in support of the tree ordiance as proposed, mostly due to costs associated with renovations and new builds (the latter of which will all be passed along in the purchase price of homes– increasing the crazy Decatur prices even more) and the inequitable distribution of the costs of preserving our residential canopy. As proposed all the costs are born by those with wooded lots that want to do projects on their property– no other residents pay a dime. However, I don’t see how tree preservationists can be happy with the proposal either, since clear cutting is still permissible in many situations and the 3 free trees every 18 months can effectively clear cut a lot as well. As a community, we can do better than this proposed ordinance.
Yep, I guess we do. My older, less wealthy neighbors who’s houses are their greatest assets are pretty damn pissed that the city might punish them for not selling or renovating sooner. The newcomers who have bought renos in the last 10 years couldn’t care less. It’s fine if you don’t care about maintaining some semblance of diversity and protecting property values for the people who need it most. But I do…
One of the reasons for the crazy high prices is that builders can clear a lot and build a huge house that commands that high of a price. If you look over in the historic districts, builders aren’t clearing lots, but people are renovating and houses are being sold, maybe not for 800K, but selling.
Very few residents are going to cut three healthy trees a year just for the heck of it, so there won’t be much lot clearing occurring that way.
Very few lots have 50% of their canopy coverage coming from neighboring lots as well.
I do agree with you on one point, that the ordinance as written makes it too easy for developers to clear cut a lot. The solution to that would be too make that too expensive to do. It’s pretty expensive to clear a lot in the Highlands or in Lake Claire- but big houses still go up. The nice thing is that most of the trees are still there!
“Very few lots have 50% of their canopy coverage coming from neighboring lots as well.”
This is just wrong. That is all.
I agree, most people aren’t going to cut down 3 trees every 18 months- I certainly am not. I just highlighted the fact that there are still many ways it is possible to clear cut as currently drafted- a developer may only need to cut three big trees and a lot may lose substantially all of its canopy (i.e. the Melrose house). The proposed ordinance also does not prevent big houses- a property is still able to be developed to its full zoning potential, trees or no trees. I suggest people who do not care for the big houses attend the UDO/zoning meetings to give their input as to the amount of structure allowed on a lot.