COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) — The City of Columbus is taking steps to enact stronger protection for trees.
City Councilmembers Mitchell Brown, chair of the Recreation and Parks Committee, and Emmanuel Remy, chair of the Environment Committee, sponsored an ordinance to authorize the Department of Recreation and Parks to repeal the current public tree code, with the legislation being passed by the council on Dec. 11.
The full list of changes made by the newly adopted tree code includes the following:
- A companion manual to aid in better outcomes
- Mitigation now applies to all projects
- Stronger valuation of trees and inch-for-inch replacement
- Better enforcement
- In line with best practices
- Clarity in goals and structure
- Appeals process
“This is an important step in modernizing our Public Tree Code in the city of Columbus and I am proud to co-sponsor this legislation this evening,” Councilmember Emmanuel Remy said during the council meeting.
In 2021, Columbus City Council approved the Urban Forestry Master Plan, a strategic plan to invest long-term in Columbus’ trees. After a two-year effort, the new Public Tree Code is the council’s plan to work towards this long-term investment.
Since the approval of the Urban Forestry Master Plan, the city held two public comment periods while discussing changes to the Public Tree Code, and the Recreation and Parks Department held over 35 city interdepartmental meetings to work through how they would implement it.
As the law stood, some healthy trees weren’t being replaced when construction work happened on public land. A March example of trees being removed by development in the city was a Dunkin’ Donuts in Clintonville, which received an $8,000 fine for cutting down trees. The new tree code increases the penalty for cutting down public trees, moving up from $200/diameter inch to $260/inch.
According to the Columbus Urban Forestry Master Plan website, investment in public trees is important to help Columbus’ canopy goals, especially in working to stop net loss by 2030. Under the systems in place during the development of the plan, it was shown that the city was losing more tree diameter inches than were being replaced.
City code gives authority over all trees planted or to be planted on city-owned property to the Columbus Recreation and Parks Department. In the United States, tree code is grouped into the two categories of public and private trees. Before the passage of the new tree code, public trees were controlled by a combination of two pieces of legislation: City Code Chapter 915 and a 2015 Executive Order.
The ordinance said that these changes to encourage tree growth will provide residents with additional shade for streets, cleaner air, filtering water, and making Columbus more walkable and resilient.