Developers Aghast At Tree Ordinance Update That Could Raise Replanting Fees By 800%

When Atlanta developer Windsor Stevens Holdings was preparing its site along the Atlanta BeltLine for The Proctor apartments, it had to shell out nearly $20K to the city of Atlanta to take down 19 trees, according to invoices shared with Bisnow.

But under a new tree ordinance under consideration by the Atlanta City Council, Windsor Stevens founder Rod Mullice estimates that removing the same trees would cost more than $155K. 

“This is not helpful for housing affordability and having workforce housing in the city,” Mullice said. “For a marginal project, it would prevent it from happening.”

Atlanta lawmakers are deliberating over a revamped tree ordinance in an effort to preserve its status as the “City in the Forest.” The city aims to return its tree coverage to 50% of the city's land after a 2018 Georgia Tech study found that its canopy had dropped to 46.5% coverage — a figure that is likely even lower today.

The proposal would increase the cost that landowners must pay the city to remove a tree by nearly 800%. Developers, homebuilders and real estate industry groups are aggressively pushing back, claiming it would stifle new housing development and make it impossible to hit Mayor Andre Dickens’ goal of building and preserving 20,000 affordable housing units in the next five years.

“This draft ordinance devastates the ability for me to provide affordable housing in Atlanta,” said Fortas Homes CEO Jim Cheeks, who has been building affordable for-sale and rental housing in the city since 1999. “I simply can’t imagine the policymakers and the administration want a company like mine to not do what we’re able to do.”

But a robust tree canopy is considered critical to mitigate the effects of climate change, reduce heat island effects in urban areas and help with overall human health, experts say.

“We can't control climate change across our state and the world, but we can cool down our city by keeping the canopy,” said Greg Levine, executive director of Trees Atlanta.

Besides the eye-watering increase in tree replacement costs, also known as recompense, the new rules would create a list of priority trees to save and mandate that trees be kept or planted in the front yard of every new single-family home. Developers would also need to submit a tree plan prior to construction and get it approved by the city’s arborist, according to the proposed ordinance.

But the most controversial change is the change to the recompense formula used to charge developers and landowners when they want to remove a tree unless it’s dead, diseased or poses a hazard. 

A developer or homeowner who removes a tree has to replace it by paying to replant a tree or replanting it themselves. Under the current ordinance, the city charges a flat $100-per-tree fee, plus the difference in diameter between the tree being removed and the new one being planted multiplied by $30 per inch.

If a developer removes a 10-inch tree and plants a 6-inch tree today, it would owe the city $120. The fees are paid to a city-run tree trust fund that is used to replace and replant trees in the community. 

Under the new ordinance, the $30-per-inch charge would increase in phases to $260 per inch by 2029. For multifamily projects that keep a certain amount of units income-restricted for 20 years, developers would pay 50% of the new recompense fee.

The current ordinance also caps the total fee that can be charged to a developer to $5,000 an acre, according to the city. The new proposal would remove the cap. 

The $30 per inch recompense fee has been in place since the city originally passed its tree ordinance in 2001.

Trees Atlanta, a nonprofit the city contracts with to plant trees, consulted on the proposed new ordinance. Levine, who runs the group, says the fee structure today is partly to blame for why the city's tree canopy has shrunk. 

“Recompense has been way too low for way too long. [Developers are] paying for a fraction of what it costs to plant a tree,” Levine said. “The price is much more. We know they don’t want to pay it, but that is the true cost to try and replace the canopy eventually.” 

Housing and real estate groups, including Habitat for Humanity, HouseATL and the Atlanta Commercial Board of Realtors, have come out forcefully against the proposal, sending letters to the city asking for lower recompense fees, 100% waivers for affordable projects and more flexibility on tree density and placement on lots. 

Selig Enterprises Executive Vice President and ACBR President Chris Ahrenkiel as well as leaders of the Atlanta Land Trust, The Council for Quality Growth and the Greater Atlanta Home Builders Association, proposed increasing recompense fees to $60 per inch and $100 per tree and keeping the cap in place, according to a letter obtained by Bisnow. 

Besides concerns over making new development prohibitively expensive, the jump in recompense could also impact homeowners who have to remove trees from their property because of insurance demands, ACBR Vice President Frankie Elliott said.

“We’re hearing more and more from our Realtor members and even potential buyers of homes [that they are] not getting insurance, or it’s extremely expensive, because of tree canopy coverage over homes,” Elliott said. 

The bill to revamp the tree ordinance was introduced by City Council Member Julian Bond on Dec. 2 and was referred to the Community Development/Human Resources Committee, where it remains. 

Bond told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution this week that he hopes the ordinance moves forward without any major revisions. He said he hopes the council will use its recess from April 7-18 to work on a final draft. Bond didn't respond to Bisnow's request for comment.

The city is working on a new tree ordinance at the same time it is considering a wholesale revision to its zoning codes, which could force changes to the tree ordinance, City Planning Commissioner Jahnee Prince told the AJC. Real estate groups have called for holding off on tree ordinance changes until the zoning changes are finalized.

Council Member Matt Westmoreland said in an interview this week that a rewrite of the city’s tree ordinance “is long overdue.”

But he said there needs to be more public discussion and awareness of the proposed changes and how they may impact development in the city, especially with housing stock. The city is presenting the ordinance to the city’s various neighborhood planning units for input, he said.

The ordinance is scheduled to be addressed again by the CDHR committee on April 21.

“I also want to see from developers real numbers. Like, this is how much it costs to build a unit on this parcel today and this is how much it will cost through recompense,” Westmoreland said. “The city needs an ordinance that both protects the canopy and lays out a funding stream to continue to plant new trees. It’s just the topic is really complicated, and I want us to get it right.”

Cheeks, whose firm builds small workforce and affordable homes priced at around $200K, said at one of his projects he paid $1,208 to remove and replant trees. After analyzing the proposal, he said that cost would rise to $38K — a 3,000% increase.

For a homebuilder targeting the affordable market, he said the increased cost could make a project impossible.

Lots in many of the city's most underserved areas tend to be overgrown with trees and vegetation that need to be removed, and pumping up the recompense to $260 per inch “is almost laughable,” Cheeks said.

“I think the ordinance is going to create a situation where you either stop or tremendously slow projects in transitioning neighborhoods,” he said. “Or you render some particular lots [of] no value because the costs of recompense is just too high.”

Nabil Hamman, who owns luxury home contracting firm Hammer Head Construction, helped draft the revised ordinance as co-chair of the Atlanta Tree Conservation Commission. He said developers' concerns are likely overblown.

“Developers will develop. We need to have a better tree ordinance to protect the trees,” Hamman said. “The cost of replacement of trees is much higher than it used to be. I understand. It's certainly going to increase the costs. It’s a hard conversation to have.”

Hamman also said the proposed ordinance would let developers move their projects around on a lot to save trees by allowing structures to encroach closer to property lines. Plus, affordable developers would get “a big break on recompense” under the current draft.

“I don’t believe it’s a legitimate concern,” he said. “If anybody wants to build affordable housing, we will work with them. Affordable housing is very important to the city.”