Council holds public hearing on extending interim ban on removal of very large trees in two town-center zones

Shoreline City Council on Monday held a public hearing on whether to extend an interim ordinance that bars removal of trees measuring 60 inches diameter at breast height (DBH) or larger in the Town Center 3 and Town Center 4 zoning districts.

City staff told the council the interim regulation, adopted in January as an emergency ordinance, has a six-month term and staff recommends a six-month extension while the city completes a holistic update of the private-property tree regulations in subchapter 5 of the development code. "The extension ... would be effective for another 6 months," staff said during the presentation.

The issue drew five in-person public comments and sustained council discussion. Multiple speakers representing the Shoreline Preservation Society and neighborhood groups urged the council to preserve large trees and to study protections more broadly. Kathleen Russell of the Tree Preservation Code Team said, "We ask council to protect these large trees." Public commenters cited research on the disproportionate ecological and social benefits of the largest trees and said that once removed those benefits cannot be quickly replaced.

Speakers also raised process and equity concerns. Council members asked staff whether comparable 60-inch-plus trees exist in other zones that allow full removal; staff said the city does not have a comprehensive inventory of privately owned trees of that size and noted that inventorying private trees would require property access. Council member Scully said she supported the extension for the current zones but expressed concern about fairness if other property owners in other zones could remove similarly sized trees. Council member Ramsdale and others urged staff to study a citywide approach; legal staff and the city manager clarified that expanding the interim regulation citywide would require a separate ordinance and would likely involve the planning commission rather than being accomplished as a simple amendment to the existing emergency ordinance.

Speakers offered varying perspectives about scope and cadence. Several commenters said the large trees are rare and low in number and recommended either extending the interim protection while the tree code is updated or creating permanent protections for the largest trees. Matthew DeAngelis and other residents said the ordinance is narrow and urged that the long-term tree-code update address broader tradeoffs between tree preservation and housing. Public testimony included quantitative claims: one commenter said "more than 4,500 trees have been cut down since 2019" (attributed in the transcript to public comment), and staff reiterated that the interim measure focuses specifically on the 60-inch DBH threshold established in the January ordinance.

Council and staff outlined next steps. The public hearing is the required procedural step; staff said the council will consider action to extend the interim regulations for the TC3 and TC4 zones at its July 14 meeting. Staff also said the tree-code update is just beginning, with a joint council–planning commission meeting planned on July 14 to discuss policy questions including how to treat "large or exceptional trees" in future code changes. "We plan to kick off engagement with the community... and really get underway into the fall and early part of next year," staff said.

The hearing closed with no vote on the extension taken at the June 23 meeting. Council members asked staff to report back with options for a broader, citywide interim approach and with information on how many large trees the city may have in other zones; staff noted that a citywide interim moratorium or emergency ordinance would be a separate action requiring its own procedural steps.

An item to extend Ordinance 10-36 for TC3 and TC4 is scheduled for council action on July 14.