I became a member of the Atlanta Tree Conservation Commission (TCC) in 2019. The 2001 Atlanta Tree Protection Ordinance (TPO) created the TCC to hear appeals of City arborists’ decisions on tree removals. The TCC hears many appeals involving developers who clear-cut a lot and pay recompense. Recompense is the amount paid to Atlanta’s Tree Trust Fund to enable the City to plant new trees and buy forested properties.
I discovered that the 2001 Atlanta Tree Protection Ordinance (TPO) does not protect trees because it does not have a Tree Preservation Standard. A Tree Preservation Standard requires a developer to save trees that do not need to be cut outside the building footprint for the house. The 2001 TPO might as well be named: “The Atlanta Clear Cutting Ordinance” because some developers clear-cut all of the trees to build a house.
In 2017, the City recognized the need for TPO revisions and hired two consultant teams to do the rewrite. The results were so flawed that the City began drafting a new TPO in 2020.
In March 2020, I decided to form a group to write a new TPO for Atlanta. Kathryn Kolb and Howard Katzman were already working on a TPO. Kathryn is a tree ordinance expert. Howard is a retired builder. I decided to work with Kathryn and Howard and serve as coordinator of the Citizens Group. The Citizens Group included nonprofit tree advocacy organizations, Tree Conservation Commission members, developers, an arborist, attorneys, two watershed alliance officials, and interested citizens.
Atlanta City Council members recognized the Citizens Group and directed the Planning Department to collaborate with the Citizens Group to write a new TPO.
Atlanta has a tree loss crisis. Atlanta loses .43 acres of trees a day to development. Atlanta is the third worst city in the U.S. in terms of temperature rises. A 2021 study found that Atlanta was the fifth worst U.S. city in tree loss, and healthy tree loss doubled from 2019 to 2023. Healthy tree losses have increased every year since 2023. Nearly 80 percent of Atlanta’s trees are on single-family residential properties. The principal cause of the tree loss crisis is developers who clear-cut residential lots.
From 2020 to 2021, the Planning Department (PD) met with the Citizens Group, developers, the Council for Quality Growth (CQG), and other interested citizens to negotiate a new TPO. A TPO was introduced by Michael Julian Bond in 2021 but never voted on. During 2022-2024, stakeholder groups had meetings to discuss the provisions needed to create a TPO that would protect the landowner’s and developers’ rights to build while ending clear-cutting on residential properties.
In November of 2024, Planning Commissioner Jahnee Prince released a new draft TPO that was originally introduced by City Council member Michael Julian Bond.
The draft TPO has a Preservation Standard that: (1) protects the rights of developers and landowners to build what they want, (2) allows developers and landowners to remove the trees that need to be removed and (3) requires the preservation of trees that do not need to be cut. The Preservation Standard will end clear-cutting on medium and large single-family residential properties. The Planning Department tested the Preservation Standard on properties in every zoning district for three years.
The Preservation Standard is the most important provision in the TPO because it preserves the owner’s and developers’ rights to build what they want and remove trees while prohibiting clear-cutting on most residential properties.
The TPO raises recompense from the 2001 cost to the 2025 fair market value for replanting trees. The TPO provides a 50 percent discount in recompense even for full-price homes for developers who build affordable housing. Under certain conditions, the TPO gives a 100 percent recompense waiver to affordable housing developers.
Simply put, the TPO incentivizes developers to build more affordable housing.
The TPO: (1) will reduce the loss of existing trees in single-family residential developments; (2) enable developers to remove the trees that need to be removed for the development; (3) preserve tree canopy and natural soils that reduce stormwater; (4) increase recompense to the actual cost of replanting new trees; (5) will not increase the cost of housing in Atlanta; and, (6) will not increase the cost of building affordable housing.
Some developers claim that the new recompense is an exorbitant 800 percent increase that will significantly increase the cost of a new home. This claim is false. The current recompense is $30 per diameter inch. The current cost to replant a tree is $260 an inch. The draft TPO gradually increases the recompense from $30 to $260 over four years. Therefore, the $260 is not an exorbitant increase. It is an overdue increase to cover the actual cost of planting a tree in 2025. It is estimated that the new recompense will be less than 2 percent of house cost, not a significant increase, and much less than other market factors.
The Council for Quality Growth (CQG) and some developers contend that the TPO will prevent developers from building affordable housing and damage the housing industry. These claims are not supported by the facts. The TPO provides recompense waivers for affordable housing construction. The increase in recompense will not increase the cost of housing in Atlanta. CQG wants the City to delay a vote on the new TPO for several years, even though the City has already done testing on site plans in every residential zoning category.
CQG’s arguments are an obvious delaying tactic that would postpone a vote on a new TPO for several years. CQG, as the development industry representative, is willing to destroy the City in a Forest so that developers can continue to profit from clear-cutting.
National Geographic named Atlanta the “Place of a Lifetime” because of its trees and old-growth forest. CQG would sacrifice Atlanta’s trees so that developers can continue to build on denuded properties.
Jahnee Prince and her Planning Department staff have created a TPO that includes a balanced preservation standard, fair-market recompense, and a good tree value system. This new TPO updates the 2001 TPO. Most importantly, the TPO Preservation Standard will end clear-cutting on most single-family residential properties and save Atlanta’s trees. It’s time to celebrate the Planning Department’s work and pass the new Tree Protection Ordinance for Atlanta.
It is not just the developers. My neighbors cut down trees weekly. I try reporting them and sometimes it works. Mostly the aborists are so busy they can’t get to the site before the damage is done. Years past the temperature in my neighborhood in Buckhead was 2 degrees cooler once you entered our forested area. But that changed in 2020 and now it is just as hot as it is at Lenox Square. Shameful.
Thats so sad. I have erstwhile memories throwing down the windows to cool off when driving through Buckhead Forest.
Thats so sad. I have erstwhile memories throwing down the windows to cool off when driving through Buckhead Forest.
Thanks for all you have done on this issue, Chet.
I will cut down whatever trees I want. It’s my property & I will do with it as I please. These trees threaten lives & kill people when they fall on a house. There are too many trees in this city & they need to be cut down!
^ above comment written by a beaver ^
The elephant in the living room – there are 2 – of course a King & Spalding Development lawyer is on the Tree Commission . It is more likely that most of Atlanta’s tree loss has occurred while arguing over the failings of the 2001 TPO , rather than enforcing the enforceable parts of the existing TPO .
This City has had a de facto policy of looking the other way while massive tree destruction has occurred , and it will continue to be . The Emperor has no Clothes , but He can sure pontificate .
The Piedmont Park Beltline extension and the Atl Botanical Garden have and Are destroying more trees than half of VaHi , yet the whine you hear is from developers who want to kill Your trees by root undercutting as well as scrape the lot next door. A disgusting mirage .
Chet-
Your either a liar or an moron when you say this won’t raise the cost of housing.
How about the part where it says you must create tree save areas on sites that have no trees? Division 10-c.f.2.c – “If the site contains no forest patches that meet the .25-acre threshold then 15% of the site must be designated as a tree save area”.
So, developer wants to build where a parking lot previously existed in say downtown Atlanta. City get 15% of the site for trees. Guess what! You just devalued every development site in the site by a minimum of 15%! Well done. Oh and that forest you just created in the middle of downtown or wherever, It’s perfect for homeless encampments and crime and I suspect is direct conflict with the intent of SPI districts.
Chet,