By SCOTT DODD
Concerned that too many of its trees are falling to make room for
new homes, Charlotte is considering rules that would require
builders to save at least 10 percent of the green canopy in each new
subdivision.
Under the rules, which would be among the strongest in the
Carolinas, developers also would have to plant trees along the
street and save those of a certain age or size. A special committee
that included both environmentalists and builders worked on the
policy for more than a year.
Like most communities in the Carolinas, Charlotte requires
commercial developers to plant trees and landscape property. But the
city ignores subdivision builders, allowing them to clear-cut
property for new homes.
That means much of Charlotte's new development is exempt from
tree-preservation rules. "Most of our growth is residential by
far," said Rick Roti, who chairs the city's tree commission and
the local Sierra Club's conservation committee.
The new tree policy would be a fundamental shift in Charlotte's
development rules, along the lines of requiring sidewalks on both
sides of the street. That debate nearly four years ago consumed the
City Council for months.
This time, however, some leading developers are on board.
Real-estate representatives helped hash out the new rules.
Not without rancor. At one point, a moderator had to be brought
in to help the committee agree.
"It was a very good and tough debate to reach consensus, but
that's what you want," Roti said. "The end result, I
think, is going to be a smart tree ordinance that will actually
work."
The new Charlotte rules would reward developers who preserve more
than the required 10 percent of the tree canopy with incentives,
such as the ability to build more homes than otherwise allowed.
Some members of the city tree commission - a different group than
the panel that developed the new rules - had wanted more of the
canopy to be saved. Roti, though, thinks the compromise makes sense.
His goal is to have half of every subdivision covered with trees.
He thinks the new policy, with its 10-percent rule, incentives and
street-tree plantings, can achieve that.
Trees of a certain height and diameter - which vary according to
species - would have to be preserved as well. Developers could only
remove them with a special permit and would have to replace them
elsewhere on the property with something similar.
That's designed to save some of the city's oldest and largest
trees, which are often the first to go because developers find it
difficult to build around them.
Builders who break the rules would be subject to fines that
increase with each violation. They would also have to replace the
cut trees with similar specimens.
The new regulations could be adopted early next year. Several
City Council members say they want to do more to save trees,
although they hadn't examined the proposed policy before Monday
night's meeting.
Real-estate lobbyists said the details of the written ordinance
will determine whether they support or oppose the new rules.
"We already do a number of these things because that's what
homebuyers want," said Kyle Boyles, deputy director of the Real
Estate and Building Industry Coalition. "I really don't think
the tree canopy is in danger here to a great degree."
