Resolution 19-R-3365 was ADOPTED by the Atlanta City Council on March 18, 2019 and
APPROVED by City Charter Section 2-403 on March 27, 2019
RESOLUTION BY COUNCILMEMBER NATALYN M. ARCHIBONG
A RESOLUTION URGING THE ATLANTA CITY PLANNING DEPARTMENT TO EXPEDITE THE COMPLETION OF THE CITY'S TREE ORDINANCE REWRITE; AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES.
WHEREAS, Atlanta's Tree Protection Ordinance is an environmentally important law that protects the city's tree canopy and sustains its urban forest for the benefit of residents, visitors and long-term sustainability of Atlanta's ecosystem; and
WHEREAS, despite the intent of the existing Tree Protection Ordinance, the loss of Atlanta's most valued trees and forest resources continues at an alarming pace; and
WHEREAS, the Planning Department contracted with the firm Biohabitats to work on the Tree Ordinance project and develop an urban ecology framework with a mandate to "define a better future condition for the natural environment, including high-level recommendations about future green spaces, green connections, and green policies"; and
WHEREAS, the project commenced in mid-2018 with the collection and analysis of data and community forums scheduled to be held during April 2019, and a final draft of the ordinance projected to be completed by late July or early August 2019; and
WHEREAS, development in the City of Atlanta is on the rise, with over 22,537 construction permits issued for construction year-to-date, which is an 8% increase over 2018 and a 37% increase over 2014 figures; and
WHEREAS, historically Atlanta is called the "city of trees" because it is covered with an extensive canopy of mature trees and this rich history is in jeopardy of being erased; and
WHEREAS, there is a pressing need, substantially related to the public health, safety and welfare of the citizens of Atlanta to expeditiously enact regulations governing the protection of trees.
NOW, THE COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF ATLANTA HEREBY RESOLVES that the Atlanta City Planning Department make every effort to expedite the completion of the Atlanta Tree Ordinance rewrite and review its timeline for any modifications which could be implemented to expedite the process.
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Atlanta City Planning Department consider reviewing available options for enacting some interim development controls governing preservation of trees until permanent controls are adopted through the Tree Ordinance re-write.
BE IT FINALLY RESOLVED that all resolutions or parts of resolutions in conflict with this resolution are repealed.
When attendees at the June 6, 2019 Tree Ordinance Rewrite Draft Outline public meeting were asked to comment on the "Non-Construction Related" concept board on how they felt about the "Ability to remove one (1) non-high value tree per year no matter the condition", the responses were overwhemlingly negative:
Dislikes
They also disliked the fact that this proposal allowed healthy tree removal at the discretion of the property owner, not the City Arborist:
There were a couple of comments that supported this proposal, and one suggested it be limited to one tree every FIVE years.
Likes
A Better Alternative
There were a couple of comments that reflected public receptivity to providing support for people who couldn't afford to maintain their trees or remove them in case of an emergency.
Perhaps we should explore earmarking a portion of the Tree Trust Fund to:
When attendees at the June 6, 2019 Tree Ordinance Rewrite Draft Outline public meeting were asked to comment on the "Doing Everything Right" concept board on how they felt about having "No Postings" and No Appeal Options", the responses were overwhelmingly negative:
Likewise, when asked to comment on the "Development Standards" concept board how they felt about a "Streamlined process with no appeal/ posting required", they posted:
A Better Alternative
We support streamlining the permitting process for developers who are indeed "doing everything right" by not having them go through the appeals process. However, appeals already are not being filed on developers who are following the Tree Protection Ordinance. The public simply does not trust the City to decide a developer is "doing everything right" without any public oversight since appeals are frequently upheld by the Tree Commission, indicating that the City sometimes gets it wrong.
The number of appeals heard by the Tree Commission can be reduced by:
Is City Planning listening to the community, or have they become so invested in their original Tree Protection Ordinance (TPO) Rewrite Draft Outline that they can't turn the ship?
At the August 22, 2019 City Council work session, City Planning was still proposing "streamlined postings, appeals and permit process" and "allowances to remove healthy trees" for non-construction purposes, two ideas which were overwhelmingly rejected by the residents who attended the presentation of the TPO Rewrite Draft Outline in June 2019.
We must keep the posting and appeals process for all properties in the new tree ordinance.
In the past, "streamlining" the permitting process has resulted in limiting public participation by shortening appeal times and making it more difficult to appeal. For example, prior to 2008 we had 15 days to appeal a preliminary permit on private property; now with "streamlining", we have only 5 days to appeal. How much more streamlined can we get without completely doing away with postings and appeals?
That's exactly where City Planning was heading with the new tree ordinance when in June they proposed to eliminate postings and appeals for any project the City decided was "doing everything right". People were completely opposed to that concept, and yet City Planning is still proposing to streamline the postings, appeals and permit process, with no assurances that this streamlining will not make it more difficult or virtually impossible to appeal some tree permitting decisions. City Planning needs to recognize that a tree ordinance which puts some permits behind closed doors and out of public view invites the kind of corruption which the City of Atlanta already knows too well.
The community doesn't want the allowance to remove one healthy tree a year in the new tree ordinance.
Residents also were shocked to hear City Planning propose an allowance for individual property owners to remove one healthy tree a year that the City decides is "non-high value" (a non-scientific assessment). While we understand that some people fear trees falling on their houses and others need financial assistance to maintain their trees, the answer to these concerns is more education, greater public investment in tree maintenance, and appropriate use of DDH and landscape permits, not allowing tree removal simply because someone doesn't like a tree in their yard. (Plus, developers may be able to cut the largest tree on their property with no recompense if this proposal is passed.) Public outcry to this concept was heated, with people saying that it was "a recipe for disaster" and "could decimate our coverage in no time." Yet, City Planning is continuing to push for "allowances to remove healthy trees." Why? The "one tree a year" allowance is completely counter to the City's stated goal to increase our canopy coverage to 50%.
What did City Planning hear the people say?
In his August 22, 2019 presentation to City Council, Tim Keane presented the following as the feedback he received from each of the primary stakeholder groups:
Engaged residents
Advocacy groups (Keane said this group included The Tree Next Door and City in the Forest)
Development industry
City agencies
The scant amount of feedback City Planning says its received from "Engaged residents" makes these residents appear to be hardly engaged at all. Surely this group does not include the very engaged residents who showed up at the June public feedback sessions, or else, City Planning missed 95% of their feedback.
Perhaps City Planning is assuming that the people who are engaged enough to show up at a tree ordinance public feedback session is actually part of the "Advocacy groups" category, even though the vast majority of them do not belong to any tree advocacy group. If so, aren't some key points missing from what they said? (Like what's in the red text above?)
The concerns listed underneath "Advocacy groups" above completely ignore the summary feedback TTND member deLille Anthony sent to City Planning on July 17, 2019, which highlights that the public wants the posting and appeals process to stay (and, at minimum, adhere to the current online TPO posting requirements) and that the public wants the proposed “one free tree removal a year” policy to be removed, period. The letter also addresses the lack of data in the rewrite process and the concern with their Tree Bank proposal to allow recompense to be in the form of tradable credits instead of real dollars. But none of those key concerns are reflected in the "Advocacy groups" feedback above. Why?
Rewriting the ordinance was supposed to help retain and grow the tree canopy, not accelerate its destruction.
Has City Planning has gotten so far down the road with what they think are good ideas, especially for developers, that they have stopped listening to feedback that may require them to reassess what they are proposing? We know we won't get a tree ordinance that we like 100%, but we will insist on having a tree ordinance that addresses our top concerns that City Planning appears to be ignoring. We know that residents are adamantly opposed to giving up their appeal rights and that they are adamantly against the "one free tree removal a year" proposal, so these two items need to be struck from the first draft, or else we will be advocating to shut down this rewrite process.
For more comparison on the feedback City Planning and The Tree Next Door captured from the "sticky notes" placed on the concept boards in June, click here.
Below is a summary of the feedback that was posted via sticky notes to the presentation boards presented at each of the four meetings City Planning held June 3 – 6, 2019 to review the Tree Ordinance Draft Outline.
City Planning’s summary should include all the feedback captured in the right-hand column in addition to the left. However, all the feedback from the June 6 meeting didn’t make it into the summary of all four meetings, and in some cases, it was completely missed. Tree Next Door members who attended the three previous meetings report that the feedback they saw on the boards was very similar all four evenings, so we don’t understand how the feedback can be so different.
The two most criticized proposals in the Tree Ordinance Draft Outline was:
As you can see by the comparison of what the City summarized and what TTND captured from the June 6 meeting, City Planning has either completely misinterpreted what the people said or failed to understand the degree of opposition towards these two proposals. To illustrate:
1. Eliminating the posting and appeals process
Public objection to this proposal was so overwhelming at the first three meetings that the TPO Rewrite project manager Elizabeth Johnson assured the meeting attendees at the final meeting that there was no need to belabor this point. She said that they had already heard “loud and clear” that this proposal was not acceptable.
But they didn’t hear anything “loud and clear”. Nowhere in the City Planning’s overall summary do we see ANY objection to eliminating the posting and appeals process. Instead, we see in the board-specific feedback that the City believes the public is receptive to eliminating appeals on projects in which standards are being met and streamlining the process on others. But what we heard is that people are completely against eliminating appeals and they certainly don’t trust the “streamlining” process. By reducing citizen oversight, they feel the City is reducing transparency and encouraging corruption.
2. Allowing property owners (including developers) to remove one healthy tree each year
Public objection to this proposal was just as intense as the proposal to eliminate the posting and appeals process, but the City fails to capture the magnitude of this opposition. Not only is it not even mentioned in their overall summary, but in the board-specific feedback the City lists more “likes” than “dislikes” for their proposal. Oddly, in the last bullet point of the feedback to the “Non-Construction Related” presentation board, the City notes that the “voice of the opposition is stronger than the support lending the City to a losing battle,” but the overall summary suggests that there is more positive than negative feedback to what was a nearly universally panned proposal.
In the table below, The Tree Next Door provides the number of comments associated with each topic as well as a direct link to the actual comments that were made on each presentation board. We let you see exactly what the people said verbatim and we have sorted their feedback according to response frequency so you can see what mattered most. Conversely, the City’s summary provides no links to their source material – you can’t see the actual comments -- nor does it attempt to quantify the number of people who mentioned each issue, so it is impossible to tell the magnitude of concern associated with each topic.
Presentation Board |
City Planning’s Summary of Feedback on
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TTND’s Summary of Feedback on June 6, 2019 (# of related comments)
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(No link to individual comments available)
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(Click here to see individual comments)
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(This board was titled “What Should Atlanta's Methods Look Like?” at June Meetings.) |
(No link to individual comments available)
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(Click here to see individual comments)
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(No link to individual comments available)
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(Click here to see individual comments)
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(No link to individual comments available)
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(Click here to see individual comments)
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(No link to individual comments available)
City Planning says the public will "allow no appeals for certain projects" but the public says that appeals are necessary to keep transparancy and prevent corruption. |
(Click here to see individual comments)
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(Board was titled “Due Diligence - Point A - Pre-Application” at June Meetings) |
(No link to individual comments available)
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(Click here to see individual comments)
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(No link to individual comments available)
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(Click here to see individual comments)
City Planning seems to have missed how strong the opposition was to this concept by indicating more likes than dislikes, when what we saw posted was the exact opposite. Yet, it appears that City Planning knows the voice of opposition is stronger than the voice of support, so we question why the City is still pushing for what the people clearly don't want. |
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(No link to individual comments available)
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(Click here to see individual comments)
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