Bothell begins tree‑code rewrite after focus groups; staff to prioritize contiguous canopy

Senior planner Cameron Colvin and the city's newly hired urban forester summarized outreach conducted to inform tree‑code updates and showed a hypothetical townhome redevelopment exercise illustrating how the existing 20% DBH retention metric works in practice.

Colvin explained staff convened internal workshops and two public focus groups in June, recording about 50 sign‑ups and 21 participants across sessions. "We ended up having 50 sign ups in total," Colvin said, and staff will reconnect with that pool as draft code is developed. Participants generally praised critical‑area protections and open‑space rules but recommended strengthening retention priorities to favor contiguous canopy adjacent to streams, improving construction protections, reducing exemption thresholds (as development lots shrink) and adding flexibility in frontage and setback design to save higher‑value trees.

Staff proposed three guideline areas for change: (1) revise selection criteria so retained trees provide the greatest ecological value (continuous native canopy and critical‑area adjacency), (2) adjust exemption thresholds to reflect smaller lot development patterns, and (3) clarify long‑term maintenance and a permit process for tree removal after development. Commissioners discussed balancing tree protection with housing production and asked staff to propose an approach to heritage or 'significant' trees; staff said they are developing a three‑tier classification and will return with proposed definitions and implementation steps.

Staff said they will draft code revisions over the August recess and return to the commission with proposed language in the fall.