Atlanta tree removal ordinance moves forward to full council vote, fines could triple for violations

An Atlanta ordinance regarding tree removal is moving forward to a full city council vote after some provisions were pruned in a committee meeting Wednesday.
At the meeting, Council member Michael Julian Bond said he was not comfortable voting on a new version they were seeing for the first time. The version that passed was a committee substitute, with changes to some of the previous version's features.
According to the ordinance, focused on protecting the City of Atlanta's trees, if passed the city would have higher fines for illegal tree removals.
In terms of function, the previous version of the city legislation required that the City of Atlanta have 50% average tree canopy cover.
A study performed by the Center for Spatial Planning Analytics and Visualization at the Georgia Institute of Technology detailed the city's tree canopy size, citing analyses by the City of Atlanta.
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In 2008, the city reported a canopy coverage proportion of 47.9%, but in 2018, a follow-up survey by the City of Atlanta found the canopy had reduced to 46.5%.
'The City of Atlanta 2018 percent urban tree canopy coverage for 2018 was 46.5%, a slight decrease from 2014 and almost 1.5% less than 2008, which equated to an estimated .43 acres of canopy lost per day between 2008 - 2018,' the Center for Spatial Planning said.
As of 2020, the Center said Atlanta's canopy loss had been the result of a combination of single-family redevelopment, new construction for single and multi-family housing, industrial construction, mixed use and institutional and commercial properties.
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However, while all of the areas and developments have replanted the trees, as required by the city, the Center said the trees planted were not of the same type or quality.
To protect the 'City in the Forest' factors of Atlanta, the city council proposed changing the current ordinances to do more for the trees.
Should the proposed ordinance pass a full council vote, here are some of the changes that would occur:
Make it more expensive to remove trees in Atlanta, increasing fines from $60,000 to $200,000 per acre of land where trees are removed illegally
This applies to illegal destruction or removal of 60 trees per acre, or more if City Arborist cannot determine an exact number of trees
Require that violations of ordinance during construction projects results in stop work orders and result in fines of between $50 to $1,000 based on number of violations
Repeated errors or omissions for tree regulation may result in suspension of registration status for projects
Owners and tenants of properties both subject to violations if one occurs, subject to fines individually
Permits for removal must be posted publicly
Additionally, the ordinance sets requirements for getting a tree permit application as:
Prior to submitting a tree permit application, the applicant must schedule and attend an arborist meeting.
The arborist shall assess the proposed project, provide guidance on tree preservation, and outline regulatory requirements.
The arborist's recommendations shall be documented and included in the permit application.
Failure to conduct an arborist meeting prior to application submission shall result in permit denial.
While the committee passed the current version of the ordinance on Wednesday, the ordinance is expected to be discussed and voted on at the next full city council meeting on June 16.
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