An Atlanta City Council committee will be deliberating changes to the current tree protection ordinance amidst the effort to revitalize the city’s tree coverage.
The Community Development and Human Services Committee is set to hold a work session to discuss the tree protection ordinance on May 1. The current draft of the ordinance raises the recompense cost for trees destroyed and not replanted during development and removes the price cap of $5,000 per acre.
Greg Levine, the Executive Director of Trees Atlanta, told Rough Draft that the proposed hike – up immediately from $75 to $117.50, then rising yearly to $260 by 2030 – is still only a fraction of the actual cost of buying, planting, and cultivating a tree, which is anywhere from $750 to $1,000.
Although Atlanta developers argue that the increased price will hinder Mayor Andre Dickens’ goal to build or preserve 20,000 affordable housing units in the city by 2030, the current draft of the ordinance states that “projects that meet the affordable housing goals will have significantly reduced” replacement or recompense payments after the tree density standard is met.
Despite being cited as “forcefully against” the proposal, Atlanta Habitat for Humanity, one of the few developers offering homes in Atlanta for less than $300,000, is supportive of preserving the city’s canopy while still making affordable housing accessible.
“We’ve never expressed being forcefully opposed [to the tree ordinance],” Rosalyn Merrick, the President and CEO of Atlanta Habitat for Humanity, told Rough Draft. “We’ve never said that, and we wouldn’t. Instead, we start with how we might partner and find a solution together that serves both goals that the city has: to increase the number of affordable housing units available to families and to preserve our canopy. As Atlanta grows and we create more housing, we have to be mindful of the environmental impacts of that work while also being really conscious of all the costs involved and how we can control that, because ultimately those costs do get passed on to the buyer.”
Atlanta Habitat has worked with arborists from the city since about 2021 to better understand how disturbing land and trees through development affects the environment.
“When they started writing this [ordinance], they came to us, asking questions and having solutions and listening to us,” Brian Findley, the VP of Housing and Land at Atlanta Habitat, said. “Generally, I think they’ve done a good job of trying to balance all the different entities that are involved here and really has tried to put affordable housing up front.”
While many years in the making, this ordinance, introduced by Council member Michael Julian Bond, comes after the council voted to return the city’s canopy coverage to 50 percent. According to the latest numbers from 2018, the current coverage is 46.5 percent and likely lower. Levine says trees are crucial to the environmental sustainability and health of the city.
“Soil around trees absorb more water,” he said. “Trees are air conditioning. Their stomates release moisture and actually can cool the city when it’s at its hottest point, and they also shade streets and sidewalks and protect the streets from heating up as much and make sidewalks more comfortable for people who don’t have vehicles or access to transit.”
Trees have been proven to be beneficial to improving health. Studies show patients who have a view of trees spend fewer days in the hospital than those who don’t, and trees decrease the risk of heat stroke, the number one weather-related death in America.
“We can actually create a better Atlanta, no matter what’s going on around us,” Levine said. “Yeah, we aren’t going to stop these crazy storms or climate change, but we can reduce the temperature in Atlanta, we can reduce some of the storm effects in Atlanta. We can have a healthier city than other cities, as long as we’re keeping the canopy up.”