Atlanta councilors, developers and advocates spar over tree protection ordinance; item remains held

Councilors heard more than an hour of public comment and stakeholder testimony on the proposed Tree Protection Ordinance, and the measure remained held in committee at the close of the meeting.

The dispute centered on whether the ordinance should require on-site tree preservation, how high recompense fees should be and whether developers building affordable housing should receive waivers. The proposed ordinance had been revised in May to remove some preservation standards and lower recompense fees; opponents said that change effectively removes tree protection.

Tree advocate Carol Holiday urged stronger protection and immediate fee increases, asking, "Why would you wait another 7 months to implement this increase instead of implementing it immediately?" Holiday said she was "deeply disappointed" the city was "again refusing to address the critical issue of tree protection."

Developers and homebuilders said the previous preservation standards could make projects financially infeasible. Nathan Hedges, a developer with the Alan Morse Company, described a West Midtown entitlement on 3.3 acres in which a prior 35% preservation requirement would have prevented below-grade parking and effectively taken "about an acre of this property, which has a cost basis value of about $10,000,000." Growth Homes co-founder Dennis Harrell said the ordinance would add millions in tree recompense fees to his County Line Road single-family project, raising costs "from about a million dollars" to "3 and a half million dollars," making projects unsustainable.

Organized industry groups urged reinstating an "affordable housing waiver" and a maximum recompense cap. Carson Brown of the Council for Quality Growth asked the council to "reconsider reimplementing both affordable housing waivers and maximum recompense caps in this TPO." Builders including Garrett Wiley of the Greater Atlanta Home Builders Association and Jeff Brock of Brock Built urged a binding pre-application arborist review to reduce late-stage surprises and urged retaining a maximum recompense so developers could know their worst-case costs.

Advocates criticized the rollback of preservation provisions. Howard Katzmann told the council the city's process ignored eight years of community input and that the May 1 draft "eliminated all tree protection, including on single family, and reduced the recompense fees." Catherine Kolb, who has worked on tree ordinances for two decades, urged reinstating the single-family preservation standard that had been vetted by law and neighborhood planning units.

Council did not adopt the ordinance; at the meeting's end the tree ordinance (paper 204016901) remained a paper held in committee, and no final adoption vote occurred. The item will return to the council docket for further amendments and public review.

Why it matters: The ordinance intersects urban forestry, flood risk, heat mitigation and housing affordability. Speakers on both sides described trade-offs between protecting canopy and preserving affordable development options.

Next steps: Council and city planning staff signaled continued stakeholder discussions; several speakers said they will continue meetings with the mayor's office and city planning staff to try to resolve the preservation, waiver and recompense disputes.