By Hannah E. Jones
In 2018, 46.5 percent of the City of Atlanta was covered by our tree canopy — 1.5 percent less than a decade prior. Sadly, that trend is continuing with 24,000 trees cut down or tabbed for removal from July 2021 to June 2022.
As one step toward better protecting them, the City of Atlanta implemented an updated Tree Protection Ordinance earlier this month. The ordinance has not been substantially changed since 2007.
Phase One was passed by the Atlanta City Council in December, going into effect on April 13. The changes range from parking lot and building requirements to criteria around tree health and planting sites. Additionally, a new provision was created to allocate $200,000 to assist low-income homeowners with pruning or removing dead, dying or hazardous trees.
On April 17, the City Council also approved legislation that establishes a goal of achieving and maintaining a 50 percent tree canopy. A study will be conducted every five years to evaluate how effective the Tree Protection Ordinance is in meeting that goal.
Chet Tisdale, a resident who serves on the Tree Conservation Commission, describes the recent ordinance changes as “modest.” Tisdale was appointed in 2019 by former Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms to the citizen review board that oversees and appeals tree-related decisions.
“The City concluded that the only thing they wanted to change in Phase One is what is considered to be ‘low hanging fruit,’” Tisdale said. “Those would be items and provisions of the tree ordinance which could be modified and improved without any controversy at all, without any objections from stakeholders.”
deLille Anthony of The Tree Next Door, a community group dedicated to enforcing the city’s tree ordinance and protecting its canopy, shared a similar sentiment.
“Because the main objective was to seek consensus, as opposed to preserving the tree canopy, the changes implemented are too modest to make any meaningful…
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