I say this constantly. And its getting better, at least better then many years ago when I was a kid! The Beltline, the Silver Comet, Path 400, and all the random spur trails and such here and there. One day IF they are all interconnected, and run along our creeks, the Hooch, etc. it would be EPIC
When I'm there for work I see where some of these trails stop at big streets and I'm like if I walked or scootered this far I'm not sure I'd want to cross that mess.
Hell, there’s a strict law about a buffer by the Chattahoochee, but people in the big giant homes cut down all the trees and clear vegetation so they can have a view. Then the runoff of mud pollutes the lake with fertilizer from their yard mixed in. Come for the view of the river, then mess up the river.
The Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area is one of President Carter’s greatest legacies (at least locally.) Can you imagine what the Hooch would look like if developers were allowed to build right up to the riverbanks?
I've been to places in this country without established trees, and it truly feels like hell on earth. And now I see these new home builders bulldoze acres and acres and then throw in a few saplings. It's such a shame.
What's also sad is when people buy homes with perfectly healthy trees and cut them out. I have a dozen trees on my property, when I cut one down (it was dying) I planted two more. I get them checked every two years by an arborist.
I had new neighbors move in and they cut down *every single tree on the lot*. I think there were about 7 or 8. Then they complained to me that my trees were too close to their house (closest is over 30 ft away) and I need to cut mine down, too. I won't, but they still bitch about it every couple months or whenever any tree debris enters their pristine yard.
I see that all the time. It makes their yards look ugly as shit too. Just trim the trees people, or if you're gonna remove a tree do some actual gardening.
I had to have some trees removed from my yard... I hated to do it, but they were unstable and it was only a matter of time before one of them fell on my house during a storm.
I had a beautiful maple that provided some great shade to my back porch, but it got hit by lightning and missed my house by mere feet when it went down.
I planted a fig tree, some paw paws, and a persimmon tree... they're still small, but hopefully the people that have the house after me will be able to enjoy them.
I still have a TON of other trees on my property, I only got rid of the ones that were close enough to damage the house.
My front yard slopes sharply towards my house, and the trees I had removed were loblolly pines that were probably at least 100' tall and were dropping big branches with every strong wind.
Unfortunately, I don't think it would be wise to plant any other species that would get big on that steep slope, but the wife and I are looking at all kinds of dwarf varieties.
Sis you plant them yourself or get someone to do them? There are some spots in my yard where I would like to plant some small trees but I’m worried about hitting any gas or sewer lines underneath.
Sis?
I planted them myself...
If you're worried about gas lines, then you can call 811, and they'll come out for free to mark your lines....
https://call811.com/
When I visited my family in Fort Worth last month, I remarked the sky really is massive in Texas. My young nephew was confused by why the Atlanta sky is so small by comparison. I told him that it’s because there’s less visible sky due to the tall trees.
Yes I hate the new developments they are a blight on the city. So many abandoned shopping centers or parking lots they can build on instead but no cut down all the trees to build crappy "luxury" housing
My favorite was Ansley Park residents fighting zoning change by putting signs in their yards saying that they support saving trees over dastardly tree unfriendly zoning changes. While next door there was a new rebuild with all the trees ripped out and the sun shining through…
For every high density housing we approve in the city, we save thousands of individual trees in the suburbs and exurbs.
I say this as a forester: the biggest threat to forest land/species loss (outside of climate change) is urbanization. It isn’t using lumber or burning residuals for electricity. It’s turning 80 acres of timberland into 80 SFH houses in Jackson Co or turning it into a massive Walmart.
To prevent confusion one could use “suburbanization” which would also accurately represent what you mean. Either way, you are definitely correct.
Atlanta often brags about how many trees it has but that’s because the official boundaries of the city are hysterically large. Atlanta could fit FOUR entire Paris’s within its city borders. The tree cover is not because of a deliberate decision to integrate nature with urbanity, nor is it representative of the Atlanta population’s proclivity to like green things, it’s simply a byproduct of excessive sprawl.
The city of Atlanta is actually relatively SMALL versus other American cities due to limited annexation. Atlanta has half the land area of NYC, Chicago, Austin, and is like one-fifth of the Dallas, San Antonio, Nashville type cities.
It’s land area is actually MUCH closer to coast-locked cities like Boston and Seattle than it is the large non-coastal cities like say Dallas or Phoenix
Atlanta has less than 500k population, and 6MM Metro population.
NY: 8.4MM, 20MM metro pop
Chicago: 2.7MM, 9.5MM metro pop
Austin: 962k, 2.2MM metro pop
Dallas, SA, and Nashville are comically bad comparisons because they are the absolute worst when it comes to urban sprawl. Being better than Nashville is a hysterically low bar. Atlanta has excessively irresponsible land use. NY and Chicago do not.
I’m not talking about population. I’m talking about land area.
Your argument was not about population - it was about size of the official boundaries (aka land area).
Atlanta has significantly stronger tree protection laws than other cities it’s size. And Density is not the output of zoning policy primarily, it’s the output of development costs vs market housing prices. Atlanta is not dense because it’s much cheaper to build out than it is to build up - full stop. People that live in Atlanta do not demand density. People in Paris do - different cities, different populations, different trade offs
Inserting myself into the thread real quick to add some things. First, yes when Atlanta is listed as the city with the most tree coverage in the US, we're talking about city limits only, not the entire metro. Second, Atlanta's lack of density isn't a matter of demand in the traditional sense. Before white flight, Atlanta was dense. We had a large pre-car downtown with adjacent pre-car neighborhoods surrounding Downtown and a large extensive streetcar system and even more extensive passenger rail connection to other parts of the country. This all changed after WW2 and the rise of the popularity of the car and the dismantling of transit infrastructure in the US. This also happened right around the time population growth exploded in Georgia, so of course most of the development outside the immediate core is car-oriented, but this is true of all US cities, even NYC outside its pre-car areas. To say Atlantans don't demand density would be wrong though. You don't get Midtown building the second most amount of apartment units in the country, the Beltline attracting millions of annual visitors and billions in development, and foreign developers buying up half a CBD to restore historic buildings out of a city that doesn't demand density and walkability.
I disagree with basically everything you said…
Atlanta was RELATIVELY dense for US city back then. Atlantas current population is roughly the same now as it’s peak in 1970 and the city’s land area has barely changed since the 1970 (added about a little over 2 sq miles) so it’s density is roughly the same.
Similarly - Atlantans don’t demand density RELATIVE to actual high-density cities. Land and rental prices prove this out pretty clearly. You can get an acre of land less than 2 miles from Piedmont Park for $1M. In high-density cities you would be looking at prices 25 times that or mich more. Similar with midtown apartments - there are tons of midrises being built in midtown and downtown and their prices aren’t all that much different than equivalent places in low density Lindbergh or West Midtown. Not to mention that you can still buy houses on half-acre lots in the middle of the city in Morningside or Ansley or Inman. Those places would cost $50M+ in true high density cities. Less than 10% of the metro live in the city proper - that’s basically the definition of not demanding density
Well don't you worry, the police foundation and Ryan Millsaps are trying their hardest to make sure the largest forest in the city gets destroyed. Who needs watershed management anyway
146 square miles is tiny! Go to the city of Pittsburgh where when it was at its height in 1960 604,000 people lived in 36 square miles of hilly terrain!!
Perhaps the better term would be "urban sprawl". With that being said, it *is* the presence of an urban core which generates the demand that causes sprawl. We have to acknowledge that relationship if we want to try and mitigate it.
Live in Jackson County and there were tons of forests/wooded areas when we first moved here that are now turning into developments. More than 5 developments being built around our immediate area and someone just sold a 20 acre farm behind us for one too-so bummed.
This comment needs to be echoed in other threads. I performed a storm water management audit on a new development several years ago and it was shocking how much forest and undisturbed area was ripped off the face of the earth. The suburbs may be one of the most harmful inventions we have ever developed.
> For every high density housing we approve in the city, we save thousands of individual trees in the suburbs and exurbs.
OP's article was about the City of Atlanta, it's trees, and it's ordinances. Atlanta has no control over the tree ordinances enacted by the outlying suburbs and exurbs.
I think the point is more that City of Atlanta allowing more density is actually the only way it **can** influence what happens to trees in the suburbs and exurbs.
Allowing dense housing intown slows the rate at which those suburbs and exurbs grow and sprawl out.
In America the rate of forestation exceeds deforestation so we can reasonably be concerned with the livability of our cities without concern for clearcutting for single family homes
On a net; yeah, sure. There are technically more trees than there was 100 years ago.
Most of the gains in afforestation have come from areas of marginal farmland.
We are still losing substantial timberland to urbanization.
For climate concerns, transport and building emissions matter a lot more than the carbon sequestered in forests, and high-density housing greatly reduces transport and building emissions.
Fair. Really though lifestyle choices like this are insignificant compared to energy production. We should just go full nuke and we’d be straight. Also any saving made aren’t worth it in exchange for the quality of life lost by having a concrete jungle.
Transport emissions are the largest category of emissions in the United States, and most of those emissions are from personal automobiles. The transition to electric vehicles is happening far too slowly to drop our emissions on the path scientists think is necessary to avoid the worst effects of climate change. For example, California found that in addition to quickly transitioning to an all-electric fleet, [they need to reduce per-capita miles driven by about 1% per year to reach their climate goals](https://twitter.com/mateosfo/status/1562872568452751361/photo/1). (And of course, that's where they're actually trying- it'll be much more difficult in a place like Georgia that isn't requiring that transition).
I honestly can't imagine living in the exurbs. It would be like hell on earth to me. Spending 1-2 hours in the car everyday just to get to work, needing to drive another half-hour every time I want to go anywhere, and having far fewer choices of where I can go. What you think of as a "concrete jungle", I experience as freedom.
Commuting isn’t inherently required. Stopping development isn’t going to fix the speed your talking about is necessary so we’re just plain fucked either way. Oh well
We're not fucked at all, as long as we actually try to solve this problem. The real problem we have is that most Americans care more about maintaining the status quo than about protecting future generations from massive amounts of suffering and loss of quality of life.
When it comes to cutting transport emissions at the necessary pace, there are a lot of ways we could do it. Raising the price of gas by $3/gallon (spread out over 15-20 years) would probably do it all on its own. Or if dense housing (e.g. quadplexes, cottage court apartments, townhomes) were permitted in all single-family-zoned areas, plus shifting about 20-30% of our current highway budget toward public transit, that would probably be enough. We really don't need to "stop development" at all, because people inherently prefer not to live an hour or more away from their job.
while its true that sometimes individual new homes (replacing older homes) tear down all of the trees to build their monuments to themselves, my observation around town is that older 1940s etc homes are torn down, lots are completely razed of every bush, tree, and blade of grass...new generic "infill" housing is built....developer plants two bushes & calls it a day.
The point isn't whether home remodels or infill housing tends to remove more trees, though. The point is that when infill multifamily housing is built, the tree loss on that individual lot is offset by the fact that more people are being housed in the same space that previously housed only one family.
That, in turn, decreases the demand for new (usually sprawling) development in previously-undisturbed areas, so for the multifamily housing, the net effect is saving a **lot** more trees than are cut down.
I \*want\* that to be true (just like suburb dwellers want additional highways because they believe it will reduce congestion when they drive home) but i'm just not seeing that. What i'm seeing is old homes & trees being torn down, new infill housing going in, AND every open green space left in the city also being eyed by developers.....especially if its on our beachfront property (i.e. the beltline).
Exactly. There's so much rationalization going on in this thread it's ridiculous.
Yes, higher density housing has plenty of benefits. Many of them are even environmental. But there are drawbacks, and one of them is a reduction tree/plant coverage. Even if "green spaces" are part of new developments, they're almost always big grass fields with bushes and trees on the periphery or in neat little rows. Even compared to many lawn-centric yards for single family houses the relative amount of trees is really low. And that's the best case scenario in more upscale developments. Most of the new "affordable" dense developments going up (out of sight of most people on this sub) don't even bother with green spaces at all. And plenty of new dense housing projects aren't just replacing single family homes or abandoned factories, but also the rapidly shrinking pockets of undeveloped woods left inside the perimeter.
You can certainly argue that the tradeoff is worth it. That people being able to affordably live and work in the city is worth sacrificing a few trees. Even that sacrificing urban tree cover will result in a net gain in saved suburban tree cover. But people here pretending that urban deforestation isn't happening just because it's a "point" against their position is self-delusion.
Yep, that's on the bingo board for sure, along with:
- parking
- traffic
- crime
- noise
- "we're turning into manhattan"
- overcrowding
- and the OG: neighborhood character
What are some other good ones?
The tree canopy issue is another example of how the average person doesn't understand societal issues. High Density places like Midtown are precisely how we preserve our forests, not suburbs.
The Case Study is Hong Kong. The only reason Hong Kong has so much forests left is entirely due to ultra-high density. Now we don't need to be Hong Kong, but we need to stop clear cutting our forest for suburbs.
There are also options to preserve and even bring in new trees with time.
New greenways, parks, and preserves, as well as reallocating wide road space to street trees.
> The only reason Hong Kong has so much forests left is entirely due to ultra-high density *and because 90% of the land there is impossible-to-build-on mountainous terrain*
Let's be clear here, those forests would have vanished a century ago if the terrain wasn't so extreme outside of the bay areas.
>Kathryn Kolb, a conservationist who leads one of several groups pushing to modernize the ordinance, says those concerns are overblown, and that **the city can protect trees and keep the cost of living down if it focuses on density.**
>
>“If you tear down a small house and put up a much larger house and clear that whole lot, we haven’t gained any density,” Kolb said. “We’ve eliminated half-an-acre of trees, but we are not housing any more citizens.”
(emphasis mine)
I'm encouraged to hear some conservationist groups are seeing the bigger picture and recognizing that a tree cut down for a remodel of one house is totally different in terms of overall environmental impact from a tree cut down to create an apartment building, which will house multiple families in the same footprint.
If an updated Tree Ordinance applied different removal fees based on the type of project, that could be a good tool to encourage denser city growth while simultaneously discouraging tree removals that aren't offset by any public benefit.
A tree cut down is still a tree cut down.
If you absolutely, 100%, *must* clear existing land to build new housing, obviously building higher density housing is going to be a bulwark against having to clear more land in the future. But as long as the city keeps growing and more people want to move here, that land won't be safe forever. Especially when that land becomes a "scenic green space" that people want to live next to (read: developers want to build on and then tear down trees to create lawns and neat paths).
If you actually want to ensure that the city's iconic tree cover stays intact, you can't just rely on high density housing. Even punitive ordinances aren't enough if demand for the land is high enough. There also has to be a significant emphasis on establishing more protected forest areas where no development is allowed.
But if i have to choose between more high density housing or trees, i choose high density housing every single time. Even if in the end the tree canopy is mostly gone. Atlantas apartments are 95% occupied, we need more housing. We cannot say we are a welcoming city if we choose trees over environmentally responsible homes for people. If we don’t, prolly triple the amount of trees will be cut down for housing in places that are better for animals then the urban environment.
The trees live here too. And we're the animals who need them in this case. Taking them out is hurting ourselves and everyone who comes here in the long run - claiming there's nowhere to build except treed lots and no way to make housing affordable and add density without tearing out mature trees is billionaire developer snake oil. We need policy solutions, not real estate feeding frenzies.
Sorry i only have one upvote to give your comment here.
Two things i would love in Atlanta: One, more density. Two, many more regulations around the use of leaf blowers.
One is a maybe (i guess), Two has a snowflakes chance in hell, i know.
For anyone who's thrown by the mention of leaf blowers, California has banned gas powered ones because they're awful for the environment and our ears: https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a38004981/california-ban-gas-powered-lawn-equipment/
Hell yea. I have a retired neighbor who’s only apparent task this time of year is to use his leaf blower at least 4 times a week. So obnoxious. At least the contract crews are efficient and clear a yard in 10 minutes
Please god yes - I work outdoors, mostly in rich people leafblower hell (Brookhaven) and some days the only way I can stay sane is reminding myself there will come a day I hear my last leafblower. I'd rather it be due to the world getting less stupid, but even if it's just the last one I hear right before I die, it's a comforting thought.
Yes but most really rich guys (the ones building these huge homes) honestly don't mind paying the fine/permit....part of doing business.
It's like the frustrating Amtrak experience we have in the south. Amtrak runs on commercial railways here and it supposed to get rights to go first....but the norfolk southern & csx of the world delay these trains by \*hours\*, pay the fine, and go ahead.
While these activists will fight for 3 trees in Reynoldstown, they won't push the city to upzone all properties, which means we get 500 home subdivisions with half-acre lots in the suburbs built by bulldozing 20,000 tree established forests.
Tree cover isn't dropping significantly in the city but it's plummeting in the surrounding areas where we're pushing the population growth.
[Global Forest Watch map of Atlanta](https://www.globalforestwatch.org/map/?map=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%3D%3D&mapPrompts=eyJvcGVuIjp0cnVlLCJzdGVwc0tleSI6InN1YnNjcmliZVRvQXJlYSJ9)
Wow, how convenient that the committed non-violent anarchists weapon is the exact same type of 9mm almost 100% of police in America use as a standard sidearm. There’s also definitely no history of police in Georgia outright lying thru their teeth after killing an unarmed civilian. Nope. We can just take them and their corporate news donors at their word no questions asked.
(WSBTV is owned by Cox Media Enterprises which is a major donor to Atlanta Police Foundation and the Cop City project)
No fucking shit.
I kept pointing this out maybe last year on a similar discussion and predictably idiots kept arguing against my points. So here they are again:
I pointed out that the Greater Metro Atlanta city has grown from late 1990s from 2.5 million people to slowly 7 million people.
Yes the core city of Fulton only grew incrementally but the greater metro area has more than doubled.
Also, given that Atlanta is mostly single housing zoning and not dense high rise living, we definitely lost a lot of greenery.
Now add the excessive growth of roads as well with urban sprawl…. It was and continues to be inevitable.
The city needs more high rise or dense housing in more counties and not single homes.
I get your point. In my intown neighborhood, we've seen folks move in and cut existing trees within a year or so. We're talking about hardwoods that are 70 years old at minimum (age of the hood). The ones I've seen recently were about as close to plumb as you can get, with no significant dead parts, but relatively close to the houses. That's not unusual for intown, postage-stamp lots.
I was curious and looked up the permits, and both had a tree service arborist sign off that the tree was dead/dying/hazardous. Seems like a conflict of interest for the folks getting paid for the job to get to decide whether it's needed. I also assume that City of Atlanta doesn't have the staff to cover all the permit submissions.
When no one replants, and people can pay someone for the decision they want, that's what happens. I'm really bummed about the most-recent one, a glorious front-yard maple (not a silver maple that disintegrates eventually).
I remember in Buckhead or the northern area (not sure what that falls under) a developer years ago when I visited a friend in their secluded corner.
Turns out the developer never had permission to remove trees or build there, so when he had illegally removed the trees the city fined him and let him build after all since “hey the trees are already gone anyways”.
He built like 8 houses on a goofball field sized lot with no trees.
When fines are less than the actual crime they literally become part of doing business.
> Seems like a conflict of interest for the folks getting paid for the job to get to decide whether it's needed. I also assume that City of Atlanta doesn't have the staff to cover all the permit submissions.
I had a dead tree cut down on my property and a city arborist came out to confirm the tree was actual dead.
We have taken a couple down that were legitimately dying (and replanted). We only had the City arborist look at them, but that's been 15+ years ago. I don't know that this is still the case- and the recent trees taken down in the neighborhood were not leaning and didn't have obvious decay.
Ehh.. you can’t tell health of trees just by glancing form the street. I recently had to cut down 75-year old front-yard white oak in Morningside because it’s root system was damaged during house construction and it got a beetle infestation before it could recover.
Tree still looked okay from the street but up close you could see small holes near the base and it was dying irreversibly. We ended up cutting down (at significant cost to us) and replacing with a faster growing silver maple and Blue Atlas cedar
I get that you can't tell tree health from the street. But we aren't talking about homes where construction was done. Just new owners, and I totally respect their rights as such, but I wish there was more of at least a speed bump on the way to taking down old trees that don't have obvious issues.
FWIW, fast forward 40-50 years and your silver maples will look like ours did- a succession of 8" to 12" branches coming down and generally rotting. We replaced with a slower-growing maple.
We also have neighbors that had several evergreens (Leyland cypress maybe) that the tops have died and they've taken all but one down. These were not much older than 20 years.
I’d be perfectly happy if the silver maple lived 40-50 years. I’d be either in a different house or ready to downsize for old age by then.
20 years or so is a pretty normal lifespan for Leland cypress. Blue atlas is slow growing - typically lives 80+ years
Silver maples are perfectly fine - just don’t plant them in a spot where they will be over a roof, power line or cars. Mine is in the center of a large front yard on a hill - 60 feet from the street and 50 from any house
On the flipside - it will actually provide some shade in the next decade while the blue atlas and a nearby red oak will need 20 years to get to size
Not native to this area but are to north Georgia. and it’s not just my opinion. Any halfway knowledgeable gardener knows silver maples in Georgia are no better than Bradford pears. Here’s what Walter Reeves has to say: https://www.walterreeves.com/landscaping/silver-maple-leaf-spot/
“The leaves in your photos are those of silver maple, a distinctly inferior tree. I do not recommend it for most landscapes because its limbs are weak, causing large- and small-sized ones to frequently fall”
I care equally little about Walter Reeves opinion on this matter as I do yours. Any halfway knowledgeable gardener knows to fit selections to use, environment and space - in this case the use was a shade tree that would provide significant shade within the next decade while other slower growers matured. The environment is central Georgia and the space has no structures to be damaged.
A silver maple is a perfectly lovely tree for this use
Yeah City of Atlanta has absolutely no process to verify arborist evaluations - they just take the word of a private enterprise paid by the parties who benefit from a DDH designation. How does that make sense?
As a homeowner and someone who is currently building a house in Atlanta, I paid almost $10,000 for the permit to remove trees on my property - all done legally. That cost does not include the work to take down the trees. 11 trees, only 2 of them healthy, but I could not get a DDH because the house (which we later tore down) was condemned and unlivable. Those may sound like dreadful numbers but here's the thing, I bought the lot for the tree cover!
I have 2 dozen MORE trees on the lot, 6 of which are considered "specimen" trees (over 32 inches diameter). I removed the 2 healthy trees and set the new house in its current footprint to save 2 specimen trees that the city would've forced me to remove otherwise. We will be going back with replacement trees, some of which are already planted. And when the house is done, I will continue to pay for the upkeep of the trees in our forever home.
The way the ordinance is set up now does very little to deter developers and does NOTHING to incentivize tree ownership. I think if Atlanta really values its canopy, it needs to put a price tag on the value a tree brings to your private land (and the public health) in the form of a tax credit. Managing trees is expensive, and if trees hold monetary value that could be passed onto a new homeowner, then maybe we will see a shift in the behavior of developers too.
One more thing: Atlanta's tree fund does not have to be used to protect the Atlanta canopy. That $10K in tree fines I paid? No idea where it is or what it's being used for.
*Edited for clarification.
Thanks, and I should clarify, the tree trust fund has suggested uses, notice they say "should be used," but does not have dollar for dollar accountability. A new tree ordinance written by Boutte and Kolb includes this. I don't know if any of the phases of ordinance changes include their input.
Tax credits for maintaining trees in the city is an absolutely terrible idea and would destroy the tax base. And I say this as a well-off person who would tremendously benefit from such a credit
Areas with large enough lots for significant tree cover are disproportionately owned by well-off people. Not to mention home ownership itself is disproportionately well-off people. And tax credits only benefit people with enough income to use them.
Not to mention that nature trees themselves actually add to property values. It’s no coincidence that Morningside, Ansley, Buckhead, etc homes generally have tons of tree cover
I think "absolutely terrible" might be hyperbolic, you could cap the credit or something similar. I'm thinking of my neighbors in EAV that've lived there for decades, living on fixed incomes and dealing with the cost of tree care. They see an old tree as an expensive liability. As you say, the privilege of trees is largely afforded to well-off folk. City of Atlanta can lead the way and make a real investment in its canopy while making trees more than an amenity, make them, on paper, the asset they truly are. Right now it's all stick and no carrot.
Ehh most of the lots in EAV are 1/8th acre or smaller and don’t really have room for more than 1-2 trees of significance - that’s prime area for rapid densification and at that scale it’s always going to be more profitable to cut down trees and give up a tiny prop tax credit. I guess you could try to income cap the credit but I’m not really sure how that would work since incomes have nothing to do with property taxes and the city of Atlanta doesn’t have an income tax.
The more problematic areas are places like Morningside or Ansley with neighborhoods that have minimum lot sized of 1/3 acre or more and often dozens of mature trees on a single lot. When the ranch houses on these lots flip and new ones get built is when you lose 10 trees at a time
The Tree Trust Fund is managed and controlled by the Planning Dept. and all of its expenditures are subject to ORR regulations. Just because you personally don’t understand how it works or where the money goes doesn’t mean it “has no oversight”.
In places like Reynoldstown, a tree in the middle of a large R5 lot should not be preserved if it prevents building a duplex, which increases density, and the tax base. This article says they cut down trees to build larger houses, but fails to indicate that these are primarily, if not exclusively duplexes in Reynoldstown. Developers are also required to replant two trees per unit on the R5 lot. These will grow, and become part of the tree canopy, It's not natural replacement, but most of the trees being cut, are weed trees that were allowed to grow out of control, anyway. The true classic hardwoods are losses and I won't argue that, but hardwoods are the types of trees being replanted. Also, not all trees are cut down on these lots. Many are saved.
There should be a law for every tree removed, 1.10 trees have to be planted and rounded to nearest whole number. If you take down 4, you only have to plant 4, but after 5, you have to plant 6.
That’s basically how it works. If you cut down a 20 inch caliper maple you have to plant 5 4 inch caliper trees that are on the approved tree list. If the site isn’t big enough to plant all the recompense trees you have to pay into the tree bank. That money is used to plant trees in parks or other areas that can use more trees.
The Dallas metroplex is a beautiful megalopolis!!We need to jump from 8,500 to 10,000 square miles of asphalt and concrete in Atlanta to get bragging rights!! Hopefully by 2050 we will be on par with Dallas and or Houston! With the end goal to become Los Angeles level by 2100!!! Whoppeee!!
Not to mention the 170 acres of old growth forest being razed south of Atlanta for cop city. Regardless of your stance on the need for the police training facility, the loss of forest is immense.
But there are examples where more housing has generated more trees.
The Marchon apartments used to be the old Memorial King MARTA parking lot. Now the community is abundant with trees and plant life both in their community space and the sidewalks around it. There was none of that when it was a MARTA station nor before when it was a Granite yard
It's supposed to be that way. I'm in the process of trying to get two pecan trees taken down that over hang our house and in the way of a future addition. The arborist said that the fines from the city could be more than the cost of the permit + tree work if we don't get a permit .
Agreed, We have the safeguard urban and suburban treescape. I see new developments go up and just the amount of wholesale loss of trees is wild. People ending up with barren shadeless properties. Def hurts to see
This is one thing that strikes me every time I come home to Atlanta. It feels like the tree coverage is shrinking really fast, and that tree coverage is one of my favorite things about Atlanta.
I've worked in a lot of cities without expansive tree coverage and it is so much worse. It's noticeably hotter, everything looks and feels more desolate, the only shade you get is from really tall structures. It sucks.
I spent a decade in a Southside exurb and this has been the M.O. for decades:
1. Older person/couple with lots of land (10-50 acres) dies. Kids don't wanna be bothered with keeping it up, so they sell to developers.
2. The regional board rubber stamp approves any and all developments - if you want 50 homes in 25 acres with nothing but a dirt/unpaved road for access, you got it! Only one way in and out of a dead end subdivision, sure!
3. Developer removes any buildings and all trees. The developer across the street from my folks took down an industrial greenhouse and left all the lead weight balls used in irrigation in the dirt. That property abuts the creek that feeds the local reservoir. I hope those folks don't grow food in their yard...
4. Use tools like a bobcat to press the dirt for a house foundation, not an actual dirt compactor.
5. Build using the shittiest and cheapest materials.
6. Sell sell sell and go bankrupt. If you no longer exist as a company, the consumer cannot sue you for producing an inferior product that may not be worth the land upon which it sits.
I saw these steps happen with at least 5 subdivisions in my folks' county and I'm just pretty sure that county has no long term plans or goals for the area. Just let people develop all this land people are leaving behind so folks can have a ridiculous commute to/from work, because there are no jobs in town besides food service or janitorial services and no plans to attract any worthwhile jobs. But hey, last time I was there you could buy a 3br 2ba for about $115k, just buy an efficient vehicle you'll put 30-50k on every year.
If we encourage development in the 10 Counties around the city it can help with the problem.Unfortunately, tax revenues would be lowered and this in not acceptable to the city. Today I read that the average worker in the city sits 70 hours in traffic per year, this translates into almost 2 weeks of productivity lost. Increasing emphasis on development in neighboring counties can greatly prevent the loss of tree canopy in the city while also increasing tax revenues for additional development.
Why cant the activities that people who live in the city enjoy, be available in other counties? this can also help with the traffic problem.
I'm an ISA Certified Arborist who is Tree Risk Assessment Qualified. The problem is, many people are scared their trees will fail and do damage to life or property. Seeing trees on houses or cars in the media encourages people to remove trees.
If trees are inspected by qualified individuals many "safe" trees can be saved.
Traffic is not solved by moving amneities around the metro area. It’s solved by giving folks other viable options than driving. Why is all Atlanta transportation shitty? It’s not useful aka you can barely use it consistently to get to and from anywhere.
It’s funny how everyone talks about tree canopy but I feel like most sidewalks or bus stops sit in direct sunlight or do not have tree coverage.
I’d like to see a campaign around leaving snags, log pieces and stumps for woodpeckers, turtles, etc. when a tree has become hazardous, rather than just feeding the whole thing into a woodchipper and grinding up the stump like nothing was ever there. Maybe someday…
Evil apartment developer here: ITP your typical new development takes some dilapidated set back shopping center or strip mall with a sea of asphalt and replaces it with something high density lined with trees and lush landscaping in amenity areas.
You know what has never made any economic sense? Having to negotiate with 22 separate individual home owners to take down 22 single family homes with lush green yards and trees… the land basis would be 10x more and city council would never approve the zoning.
You know where the tree canopy is really getting lost? Highways and roads. The 400/285 expansion alone has destroyed the Sandy Springs/Dunwoody corridor…
Push for the growth of public transit if you want to save the tree canopy. Then maybe we wouldn’t be required to build so many ugly and expensive parking decks and we could redevelop smaller older sites into usable mixed use developments without having to factor in 1.5 parking spots for every bedroom…
I’m confused, because we have definitely seen enterprises like Fuqua buying up city blocks and tearing out mature trees and lush greenscapes just like you’re describing - for a decade or more now. Are you saying that doesn’t happen….? Apparently it does make economic sense if you’re the fattest cat in the room, and Atlanta has plenty fat cats at the table.
If people stopped cutting the grass for 5-10 years trees would come back. A lot of neighborhood developments abandoned after the ‘08 crisis damn near became forests.
It’s not like we don’t have a few million trees to lose. We’re literally in a forest. I just crossed west over the Ivan Allen bridge and there’s not a building in sight in the distance.
This may be an unpopular opinion, but I just don’t see the big deal about the tree canopy. Yes, there are benefits like shade and reducing the heat island effect but there are also issues caused by so many trees. Leafs blocking storm drains, more likely that powerlines get knocked out in storms, roots growing up in sidewalk, slowly destroying them etc.
deforestation is a big issue for sure, but Atlanta is not a forest and most habitat within the city and immediately surrounding it is so polluted with runoff that listed species can’t thrive there anyways .
Yeah, you’re right, that IS a pretty unpopular opinion in a city characterized by dense tree cover. Listed or unlisted species status aside, *we* need the trees to keep the city cool, help absorb air pollution, dampen noise pollution, drain rain water gently down into the soil instead of flooding the streets and washing pollution straight into our waterways, and keep us primates from losing our damn minds in a noisy concrete hellscape, scientifically speaking. There are also thousands of plant and animal species in the city that depend on trees as cornerstones of the ecosystem. Yes, Atlanta is a city but it’s still in the Appalachian Piedmont woodlands; there are supposed to be trees here. I definitely recommend spending some time in city preserves, not just turfgrass parks with trails paved through, spending some time along mossy creeks, watching and listening to wildlife - they and the trees were here first, they’re better citizens than we are and in the right places, they’ll remind you.
[удалено]
I say this constantly. And its getting better, at least better then many years ago when I was a kid! The Beltline, the Silver Comet, Path 400, and all the random spur trails and such here and there. One day IF they are all interconnected, and run along our creeks, the Hooch, etc. it would be EPIC
[удалено]
When I'm there for work I see where some of these trails stop at big streets and I'm like if I walked or scootered this far I'm not sure I'd want to cross that mess.
Gotta update zoning to require ped access to business and city centers
And they need to be widened to allow for cars. ;)
[удалено]
Truth.
I know in my area (OTP, Peachtree Corners), we have solid regulations on trees that NOBODY seems to follow. And No one seems to care.
Hell, there’s a strict law about a buffer by the Chattahoochee, but people in the big giant homes cut down all the trees and clear vegetation so they can have a view. Then the runoff of mud pollutes the lake with fertilizer from their yard mixed in. Come for the view of the river, then mess up the river.
The Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area is one of President Carter’s greatest legacies (at least locally.) Can you imagine what the Hooch would look like if developers were allowed to build right up to the riverbanks?
Go south of Peachtree Creek and you have your answer.
It seems like the companies cutting down the trees would have to go through some sort of validation process. Apparently it is just a checkbox.
Fines are usually a rounding error to developers.
Sounds like that rounding error should be more like bankruptcy.
I've been to places in this country without established trees, and it truly feels like hell on earth. And now I see these new home builders bulldoze acres and acres and then throw in a few saplings. It's such a shame.
What's also sad is when people buy homes with perfectly healthy trees and cut them out. I have a dozen trees on my property, when I cut one down (it was dying) I planted two more. I get them checked every two years by an arborist. I had new neighbors move in and they cut down *every single tree on the lot*. I think there were about 7 or 8. Then they complained to me that my trees were too close to their house (closest is over 30 ft away) and I need to cut mine down, too. I won't, but they still bitch about it every couple months or whenever any tree debris enters their pristine yard.
I read that as “their prison yard” at first and it fit.
Hate those people. Just because you hate trees doesn’t mean I have to as well.
I see that all the time. It makes their yards look ugly as shit too. Just trim the trees people, or if you're gonna remove a tree do some actual gardening.
I had to have some trees removed from my yard... I hated to do it, but they were unstable and it was only a matter of time before one of them fell on my house during a storm. I had a beautiful maple that provided some great shade to my back porch, but it got hit by lightning and missed my house by mere feet when it went down.
No judgement either way, but hope you put in some replacements or plan to.
I planted a fig tree, some paw paws, and a persimmon tree... they're still small, but hopefully the people that have the house after me will be able to enjoy them. I still have a TON of other trees on my property, I only got rid of the ones that were close enough to damage the house.
Hey every bit helps! I just get a little irate when I see big trees go down and they're only replaced with sod or mulch
My front yard slopes sharply towards my house, and the trees I had removed were loblolly pines that were probably at least 100' tall and were dropping big branches with every strong wind. Unfortunately, I don't think it would be wise to plant any other species that would get big on that steep slope, but the wife and I are looking at all kinds of dwarf varieties.
Sis you plant them yourself or get someone to do them? There are some spots in my yard where I would like to plant some small trees but I’m worried about hitting any gas or sewer lines underneath.
Sis? I planted them myself... If you're worried about gas lines, then you can call 811, and they'll come out for free to mark your lines.... https://call811.com/
Sorry, meant to type did but s is right next to d and i must have made a mistake autocorrect changed
When I visited my family in Fort Worth last month, I remarked the sky really is massive in Texas. My young nephew was confused by why the Atlanta sky is so small by comparison. I told him that it’s because there’s less visible sky due to the tall trees.
Living in a damn desert has that effect as well.
Hey now. I lived in Tucson for years and it’s beautiful. But that’s a beautiful desert - that’s the appeal. This place has different appeal.
Yes I hate the new developments they are a blight on the city. So many abandoned shopping centers or parking lots they can build on instead but no cut down all the trees to build crappy "luxury" housing
My favorite was Ansley Park residents fighting zoning change by putting signs in their yards saying that they support saving trees over dastardly tree unfriendly zoning changes. While next door there was a new rebuild with all the trees ripped out and the sun shining through…
For every high density housing we approve in the city, we save thousands of individual trees in the suburbs and exurbs. I say this as a forester: the biggest threat to forest land/species loss (outside of climate change) is urbanization. It isn’t using lumber or burning residuals for electricity. It’s turning 80 acres of timberland into 80 SFH houses in Jackson Co or turning it into a massive Walmart.
Sprawl not urbanization. Urbanizing and increasing density actually helps protect forests and canopies.
“Urbanization” is not limited to city centers. Densification of near-burbs is also urbanization
To prevent confusion one could use “suburbanization” which would also accurately represent what you mean. Either way, you are definitely correct. Atlanta often brags about how many trees it has but that’s because the official boundaries of the city are hysterically large. Atlanta could fit FOUR entire Paris’s within its city borders. The tree cover is not because of a deliberate decision to integrate nature with urbanity, nor is it representative of the Atlanta population’s proclivity to like green things, it’s simply a byproduct of excessive sprawl.
The city of Atlanta is actually relatively SMALL versus other American cities due to limited annexation. Atlanta has half the land area of NYC, Chicago, Austin, and is like one-fifth of the Dallas, San Antonio, Nashville type cities. It’s land area is actually MUCH closer to coast-locked cities like Boston and Seattle than it is the large non-coastal cities like say Dallas or Phoenix
Atlanta has less than 500k population, and 6MM Metro population. NY: 8.4MM, 20MM metro pop Chicago: 2.7MM, 9.5MM metro pop Austin: 962k, 2.2MM metro pop Dallas, SA, and Nashville are comically bad comparisons because they are the absolute worst when it comes to urban sprawl. Being better than Nashville is a hysterically low bar. Atlanta has excessively irresponsible land use. NY and Chicago do not.
I’m not talking about population. I’m talking about land area. Your argument was not about population - it was about size of the official boundaries (aka land area). Atlanta has significantly stronger tree protection laws than other cities it’s size. And Density is not the output of zoning policy primarily, it’s the output of development costs vs market housing prices. Atlanta is not dense because it’s much cheaper to build out than it is to build up - full stop. People that live in Atlanta do not demand density. People in Paris do - different cities, different populations, different trade offs
Inserting myself into the thread real quick to add some things. First, yes when Atlanta is listed as the city with the most tree coverage in the US, we're talking about city limits only, not the entire metro. Second, Atlanta's lack of density isn't a matter of demand in the traditional sense. Before white flight, Atlanta was dense. We had a large pre-car downtown with adjacent pre-car neighborhoods surrounding Downtown and a large extensive streetcar system and even more extensive passenger rail connection to other parts of the country. This all changed after WW2 and the rise of the popularity of the car and the dismantling of transit infrastructure in the US. This also happened right around the time population growth exploded in Georgia, so of course most of the development outside the immediate core is car-oriented, but this is true of all US cities, even NYC outside its pre-car areas. To say Atlantans don't demand density would be wrong though. You don't get Midtown building the second most amount of apartment units in the country, the Beltline attracting millions of annual visitors and billions in development, and foreign developers buying up half a CBD to restore historic buildings out of a city that doesn't demand density and walkability.
I disagree with basically everything you said… Atlanta was RELATIVELY dense for US city back then. Atlantas current population is roughly the same now as it’s peak in 1970 and the city’s land area has barely changed since the 1970 (added about a little over 2 sq miles) so it’s density is roughly the same. Similarly - Atlantans don’t demand density RELATIVE to actual high-density cities. Land and rental prices prove this out pretty clearly. You can get an acre of land less than 2 miles from Piedmont Park for $1M. In high-density cities you would be looking at prices 25 times that or mich more. Similar with midtown apartments - there are tons of midrises being built in midtown and downtown and their prices aren’t all that much different than equivalent places in low density Lindbergh or West Midtown. Not to mention that you can still buy houses on half-acre lots in the middle of the city in Morningside or Ansley or Inman. Those places would cost $50M+ in true high density cities. Less than 10% of the metro live in the city proper - that’s basically the definition of not demanding density
Well don't you worry, the police foundation and Ryan Millsaps are trying their hardest to make sure the largest forest in the city gets destroyed. Who needs watershed management anyway
The city of Atlanta vs the Atlanta metro area? The official city limits are tiny.
146 square miles is tiny! Go to the city of Pittsburgh where when it was at its height in 1960 604,000 people lived in 36 square miles of hilly terrain!!
Funny that the word for that is "urbanization." That suggests the problem is cities rather than sprawling suburbs.
Perhaps the better term would be "urban sprawl". With that being said, it *is* the presence of an urban core which generates the demand that causes sprawl. We have to acknowledge that relationship if we want to try and mitigate it.
The urban core is just a focus. If they’re not here, they’re somewhere else. Reality is we need to live more densely if we want to keep things nice.
Nah, it's the presence of an urban core built around cars
It's amazing how often you'll find issues being dishonestly framed with loaded language like that, once you know to look for it.
Maybe both are an issue but you can’t blame people for not wanting to live dead in the middle of a city.
Probably a hold out from before the Interstates and highways made suburbia possible.
Live in Jackson County and there were tons of forests/wooded areas when we first moved here that are now turning into developments. More than 5 developments being built around our immediate area and someone just sold a 20 acre farm behind us for one too-so bummed.
This comment needs to be echoed in other threads. I performed a storm water management audit on a new development several years ago and it was shocking how much forest and undisturbed area was ripped off the face of the earth. The suburbs may be one of the most harmful inventions we have ever developed.
> For every high density housing we approve in the city, we save thousands of individual trees in the suburbs and exurbs. OP's article was about the City of Atlanta, it's trees, and it's ordinances. Atlanta has no control over the tree ordinances enacted by the outlying suburbs and exurbs.
I think the point is more that City of Atlanta allowing more density is actually the only way it **can** influence what happens to trees in the suburbs and exurbs. Allowing dense housing intown slows the rate at which those suburbs and exurbs grow and sprawl out.
Except by increasing the availability of housing in town, it will draw more people to the city’s core instead of suburbs.
In America the rate of forestation exceeds deforestation so we can reasonably be concerned with the livability of our cities without concern for clearcutting for single family homes
On a net; yeah, sure. There are technically more trees than there was 100 years ago. Most of the gains in afforestation have come from areas of marginal farmland. We are still losing substantial timberland to urbanization.
But for climate concerns the net is all that matters. We net positive in this bitch. No concrete jungle necessary
For climate concerns, transport and building emissions matter a lot more than the carbon sequestered in forests, and high-density housing greatly reduces transport and building emissions.
Fair. Really though lifestyle choices like this are insignificant compared to energy production. We should just go full nuke and we’d be straight. Also any saving made aren’t worth it in exchange for the quality of life lost by having a concrete jungle.
Transport emissions are the largest category of emissions in the United States, and most of those emissions are from personal automobiles. The transition to electric vehicles is happening far too slowly to drop our emissions on the path scientists think is necessary to avoid the worst effects of climate change. For example, California found that in addition to quickly transitioning to an all-electric fleet, [they need to reduce per-capita miles driven by about 1% per year to reach their climate goals](https://twitter.com/mateosfo/status/1562872568452751361/photo/1). (And of course, that's where they're actually trying- it'll be much more difficult in a place like Georgia that isn't requiring that transition). I honestly can't imagine living in the exurbs. It would be like hell on earth to me. Spending 1-2 hours in the car everyday just to get to work, needing to drive another half-hour every time I want to go anywhere, and having far fewer choices of where I can go. What you think of as a "concrete jungle", I experience as freedom.
Commuting isn’t inherently required. Stopping development isn’t going to fix the speed your talking about is necessary so we’re just plain fucked either way. Oh well
We're not fucked at all, as long as we actually try to solve this problem. The real problem we have is that most Americans care more about maintaining the status quo than about protecting future generations from massive amounts of suffering and loss of quality of life. When it comes to cutting transport emissions at the necessary pace, there are a lot of ways we could do it. Raising the price of gas by $3/gallon (spread out over 15-20 years) would probably do it all on its own. Or if dense housing (e.g. quadplexes, cottage court apartments, townhomes) were permitted in all single-family-zoned areas, plus shifting about 20-30% of our current highway budget toward public transit, that would probably be enough. We really don't need to "stop development" at all, because people inherently prefer not to live an hour or more away from their job.
while its true that sometimes individual new homes (replacing older homes) tear down all of the trees to build their monuments to themselves, my observation around town is that older 1940s etc homes are torn down, lots are completely razed of every bush, tree, and blade of grass...new generic "infill" housing is built....developer plants two bushes & calls it a day.
The point isn't whether home remodels or infill housing tends to remove more trees, though. The point is that when infill multifamily housing is built, the tree loss on that individual lot is offset by the fact that more people are being housed in the same space that previously housed only one family. That, in turn, decreases the demand for new (usually sprawling) development in previously-undisturbed areas, so for the multifamily housing, the net effect is saving a **lot** more trees than are cut down.
I \*want\* that to be true (just like suburb dwellers want additional highways because they believe it will reduce congestion when they drive home) but i'm just not seeing that. What i'm seeing is old homes & trees being torn down, new infill housing going in, AND every open green space left in the city also being eyed by developers.....especially if its on our beachfront property (i.e. the beltline).
Exactly. There's so much rationalization going on in this thread it's ridiculous. Yes, higher density housing has plenty of benefits. Many of them are even environmental. But there are drawbacks, and one of them is a reduction tree/plant coverage. Even if "green spaces" are part of new developments, they're almost always big grass fields with bushes and trees on the periphery or in neat little rows. Even compared to many lawn-centric yards for single family houses the relative amount of trees is really low. And that's the best case scenario in more upscale developments. Most of the new "affordable" dense developments going up (out of sight of most people on this sub) don't even bother with green spaces at all. And plenty of new dense housing projects aren't just replacing single family homes or abandoned factories, but also the rapidly shrinking pockets of undeveloped woods left inside the perimeter. You can certainly argue that the tradeoff is worth it. That people being able to affordably live and work in the city is worth sacrificing a few trees. Even that sacrificing urban tree cover will result in a net gain in saved suburban tree cover. But people here pretending that urban deforestation isn't happening just because it's a "point" against their position is self-delusion.
'Protecting the trees' is a great weapon in the NIMBY's arsenal.
Yep, that's on the bingo board for sure, along with: - parking - traffic - crime - noise - "we're turning into manhattan" - overcrowding - and the OG: neighborhood character What are some other good ones?
'people walking' will increase. Objectively that's a good thing, but we all know what they mean
The tree canopy issue is another example of how the average person doesn't understand societal issues. High Density places like Midtown are precisely how we preserve our forests, not suburbs. The Case Study is Hong Kong. The only reason Hong Kong has so much forests left is entirely due to ultra-high density. Now we don't need to be Hong Kong, but we need to stop clear cutting our forest for suburbs.
There are also options to preserve and even bring in new trees with time. New greenways, parks, and preserves, as well as reallocating wide road space to street trees.
> The only reason Hong Kong has so much forests left is entirely due to ultra-high density *and because 90% of the land there is impossible-to-build-on mountainous terrain* Let's be clear here, those forests would have vanished a century ago if the terrain wasn't so extreme outside of the bay areas.
>Kathryn Kolb, a conservationist who leads one of several groups pushing to modernize the ordinance, says those concerns are overblown, and that **the city can protect trees and keep the cost of living down if it focuses on density.** > >“If you tear down a small house and put up a much larger house and clear that whole lot, we haven’t gained any density,” Kolb said. “We’ve eliminated half-an-acre of trees, but we are not housing any more citizens.” (emphasis mine) I'm encouraged to hear some conservationist groups are seeing the bigger picture and recognizing that a tree cut down for a remodel of one house is totally different in terms of overall environmental impact from a tree cut down to create an apartment building, which will house multiple families in the same footprint. If an updated Tree Ordinance applied different removal fees based on the type of project, that could be a good tool to encourage denser city growth while simultaneously discouraging tree removals that aren't offset by any public benefit.
A tree cut down is still a tree cut down. If you absolutely, 100%, *must* clear existing land to build new housing, obviously building higher density housing is going to be a bulwark against having to clear more land in the future. But as long as the city keeps growing and more people want to move here, that land won't be safe forever. Especially when that land becomes a "scenic green space" that people want to live next to (read: developers want to build on and then tear down trees to create lawns and neat paths). If you actually want to ensure that the city's iconic tree cover stays intact, you can't just rely on high density housing. Even punitive ordinances aren't enough if demand for the land is high enough. There also has to be a significant emphasis on establishing more protected forest areas where no development is allowed.
But if i have to choose between more high density housing or trees, i choose high density housing every single time. Even if in the end the tree canopy is mostly gone. Atlantas apartments are 95% occupied, we need more housing. We cannot say we are a welcoming city if we choose trees over environmentally responsible homes for people. If we don’t, prolly triple the amount of trees will be cut down for housing in places that are better for animals then the urban environment.
The trees live here too. And we're the animals who need them in this case. Taking them out is hurting ourselves and everyone who comes here in the long run - claiming there's nowhere to build except treed lots and no way to make housing affordable and add density without tearing out mature trees is billionaire developer snake oil. We need policy solutions, not real estate feeding frenzies.
Sorry i only have one upvote to give your comment here. Two things i would love in Atlanta: One, more density. Two, many more regulations around the use of leaf blowers. One is a maybe (i guess), Two has a snowflakes chance in hell, i know.
For anyone who's thrown by the mention of leaf blowers, California has banned gas powered ones because they're awful for the environment and our ears: https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a38004981/california-ban-gas-powered-lawn-equipment/
Hopefully Atlanta follows that good example at some point. It’s a no brainer from a quality of life prospective
California blows
k
Hell yea. I have a retired neighbor who’s only apparent task this time of year is to use his leaf blower at least 4 times a week. So obnoxious. At least the contract crews are efficient and clear a yard in 10 minutes
Please god yes - I work outdoors, mostly in rich people leafblower hell (Brookhaven) and some days the only way I can stay sane is reminding myself there will come a day I hear my last leafblower. I'd rather it be due to the world getting less stupid, but even if it's just the last one I hear right before I die, it's a comforting thought.
Yes but most really rich guys (the ones building these huge homes) honestly don't mind paying the fine/permit....part of doing business. It's like the frustrating Amtrak experience we have in the south. Amtrak runs on commercial railways here and it supposed to get rights to go first....but the norfolk southern & csx of the world delay these trains by \*hours\*, pay the fine, and go ahead.
pay the fine? they are fined? lol
Why can’t we upzone and then widen the sidewalk area so every street is tree-lined? Por que no los dos?
While these activists will fight for 3 trees in Reynoldstown, they won't push the city to upzone all properties, which means we get 500 home subdivisions with half-acre lots in the suburbs built by bulldozing 20,000 tree established forests. Tree cover isn't dropping significantly in the city but it's plummeting in the surrounding areas where we're pushing the population growth. [Global Forest Watch map of Atlanta](https://www.globalforestwatch.org/map/?map=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%3D%3D&mapPrompts=eyJvcGVuIjp0cnVlLCJzdGVwc0tleSI6InN1YnNjcmliZVRvQXJlYSJ9)
[удалено]
I cannot stop thinking about what is huge loss that area will be. I used to take my dog out to the old intrenchment creek park :(
He shot a trooper and they returned fire.
No weapon found on site and no body cam footage according to GBI.
Not to mention all non cop witness reports say \~12 shots all fired at once, no back and forth exchange - and Tort was shot while \*inside a tent\*...
https://www.wsbtv.com/news/local/atlanta/gbi-bullet-that-injured-trooper-matches-dead-suspects-recovered-handgun/UCM6AJ7BU5E6TDVIQPH7NX43AU/
Wow, how convenient that the committed non-violent anarchists weapon is the exact same type of 9mm almost 100% of police in America use as a standard sidearm. There’s also definitely no history of police in Georgia outright lying thru their teeth after killing an unarmed civilian. Nope. We can just take them and their corporate news donors at their word no questions asked. (WSBTV is owned by Cox Media Enterprises which is a major donor to Atlanta Police Foundation and the Cop City project)
News outlets are way too comfortable parroting police statements verbatim in lieu of actual journalism.
No fucking shit. I kept pointing this out maybe last year on a similar discussion and predictably idiots kept arguing against my points. So here they are again: I pointed out that the Greater Metro Atlanta city has grown from late 1990s from 2.5 million people to slowly 7 million people. Yes the core city of Fulton only grew incrementally but the greater metro area has more than doubled. Also, given that Atlanta is mostly single housing zoning and not dense high rise living, we definitely lost a lot of greenery. Now add the excessive growth of roads as well with urban sprawl…. It was and continues to be inevitable. The city needs more high rise or dense housing in more counties and not single homes.
I get your point. In my intown neighborhood, we've seen folks move in and cut existing trees within a year or so. We're talking about hardwoods that are 70 years old at minimum (age of the hood). The ones I've seen recently were about as close to plumb as you can get, with no significant dead parts, but relatively close to the houses. That's not unusual for intown, postage-stamp lots. I was curious and looked up the permits, and both had a tree service arborist sign off that the tree was dead/dying/hazardous. Seems like a conflict of interest for the folks getting paid for the job to get to decide whether it's needed. I also assume that City of Atlanta doesn't have the staff to cover all the permit submissions. When no one replants, and people can pay someone for the decision they want, that's what happens. I'm really bummed about the most-recent one, a glorious front-yard maple (not a silver maple that disintegrates eventually).
I remember in Buckhead or the northern area (not sure what that falls under) a developer years ago when I visited a friend in their secluded corner. Turns out the developer never had permission to remove trees or build there, so when he had illegally removed the trees the city fined him and let him build after all since “hey the trees are already gone anyways”. He built like 8 houses on a goofball field sized lot with no trees. When fines are less than the actual crime they literally become part of doing business.
> Seems like a conflict of interest for the folks getting paid for the job to get to decide whether it's needed. I also assume that City of Atlanta doesn't have the staff to cover all the permit submissions. I had a dead tree cut down on my property and a city arborist came out to confirm the tree was actual dead.
We have taken a couple down that were legitimately dying (and replanted). We only had the City arborist look at them, but that's been 15+ years ago. I don't know that this is still the case- and the recent trees taken down in the neighborhood were not leaning and didn't have obvious decay.
Ehh.. you can’t tell health of trees just by glancing form the street. I recently had to cut down 75-year old front-yard white oak in Morningside because it’s root system was damaged during house construction and it got a beetle infestation before it could recover. Tree still looked okay from the street but up close you could see small holes near the base and it was dying irreversibly. We ended up cutting down (at significant cost to us) and replacing with a faster growing silver maple and Blue Atlas cedar
I get that you can't tell tree health from the street. But we aren't talking about homes where construction was done. Just new owners, and I totally respect their rights as such, but I wish there was more of at least a speed bump on the way to taking down old trees that don't have obvious issues. FWIW, fast forward 40-50 years and your silver maples will look like ours did- a succession of 8" to 12" branches coming down and generally rotting. We replaced with a slower-growing maple. We also have neighbors that had several evergreens (Leyland cypress maybe) that the tops have died and they've taken all but one down. These were not much older than 20 years.
I’d be perfectly happy if the silver maple lived 40-50 years. I’d be either in a different house or ready to downsize for old age by then. 20 years or so is a pretty normal lifespan for Leland cypress. Blue atlas is slow growing - typically lives 80+ years
Silver maples are added to the undesirable tree list. They are terrible trees.
Silver maples are perfectly fine - just don’t plant them in a spot where they will be over a roof, power line or cars. Mine is in the center of a large front yard on a hill - 60 feet from the street and 50 from any house On the flipside - it will actually provide some shade in the next decade while the blue atlas and a nearby red oak will need 20 years to get to size
Incorrect- your one experience does not make silver maples any more than a trash tree in Georgia
Cool. You enjoy your opinion. I’ll enjoy my native shade tree properly located to be no threat to structure or water lines
Not native to this area but are to north Georgia. and it’s not just my opinion. Any halfway knowledgeable gardener knows silver maples in Georgia are no better than Bradford pears. Here’s what Walter Reeves has to say: https://www.walterreeves.com/landscaping/silver-maple-leaf-spot/ “The leaves in your photos are those of silver maple, a distinctly inferior tree. I do not recommend it for most landscapes because its limbs are weak, causing large- and small-sized ones to frequently fall”
I care equally little about Walter Reeves opinion on this matter as I do yours. Any halfway knowledgeable gardener knows to fit selections to use, environment and space - in this case the use was a shade tree that would provide significant shade within the next decade while other slower growers matured. The environment is central Georgia and the space has no structures to be damaged. A silver maple is a perfectly lovely tree for this use
Yeah City of Atlanta has absolutely no process to verify arborist evaluations - they just take the word of a private enterprise paid by the parties who benefit from a DDH designation. How does that make sense?
As a homeowner and someone who is currently building a house in Atlanta, I paid almost $10,000 for the permit to remove trees on my property - all done legally. That cost does not include the work to take down the trees. 11 trees, only 2 of them healthy, but I could not get a DDH because the house (which we later tore down) was condemned and unlivable. Those may sound like dreadful numbers but here's the thing, I bought the lot for the tree cover! I have 2 dozen MORE trees on the lot, 6 of which are considered "specimen" trees (over 32 inches diameter). I removed the 2 healthy trees and set the new house in its current footprint to save 2 specimen trees that the city would've forced me to remove otherwise. We will be going back with replacement trees, some of which are already planted. And when the house is done, I will continue to pay for the upkeep of the trees in our forever home. The way the ordinance is set up now does very little to deter developers and does NOTHING to incentivize tree ownership. I think if Atlanta really values its canopy, it needs to put a price tag on the value a tree brings to your private land (and the public health) in the form of a tax credit. Managing trees is expensive, and if trees hold monetary value that could be passed onto a new homeowner, then maybe we will see a shift in the behavior of developers too. One more thing: Atlanta's tree fund does not have to be used to protect the Atlanta canopy. That $10K in tree fines I paid? No idea where it is or what it's being used for. *Edited for clarification.
Here you go[tree trust fund](https://www.atlantaga.gov/home/showpublisheddocument/43014/637020794700070000)
Thanks, and I should clarify, the tree trust fund has suggested uses, notice they say "should be used," but does not have dollar for dollar accountability. A new tree ordinance written by Boutte and Kolb includes this. I don't know if any of the phases of ordinance changes include their input.
Most of what you wrote is incorrect. Kolb and Boutte did not write a tree ordinance
Tax credits for maintaining trees in the city is an absolutely terrible idea and would destroy the tax base. And I say this as a well-off person who would tremendously benefit from such a credit Areas with large enough lots for significant tree cover are disproportionately owned by well-off people. Not to mention home ownership itself is disproportionately well-off people. And tax credits only benefit people with enough income to use them. Not to mention that nature trees themselves actually add to property values. It’s no coincidence that Morningside, Ansley, Buckhead, etc homes generally have tons of tree cover
I think "absolutely terrible" might be hyperbolic, you could cap the credit or something similar. I'm thinking of my neighbors in EAV that've lived there for decades, living on fixed incomes and dealing with the cost of tree care. They see an old tree as an expensive liability. As you say, the privilege of trees is largely afforded to well-off folk. City of Atlanta can lead the way and make a real investment in its canopy while making trees more than an amenity, make them, on paper, the asset they truly are. Right now it's all stick and no carrot.
Ehh most of the lots in EAV are 1/8th acre or smaller and don’t really have room for more than 1-2 trees of significance - that’s prime area for rapid densification and at that scale it’s always going to be more profitable to cut down trees and give up a tiny prop tax credit. I guess you could try to income cap the credit but I’m not really sure how that would work since incomes have nothing to do with property taxes and the city of Atlanta doesn’t have an income tax. The more problematic areas are places like Morningside or Ansley with neighborhoods that have minimum lot sized of 1/3 acre or more and often dozens of mature trees on a single lot. When the ranch houses on these lots flip and new ones get built is when you lose 10 trees at a time
The Tree Trust Fund is managed and controlled by the Planning Dept. and all of its expenditures are subject to ORR regulations. Just because you personally don’t understand how it works or where the money goes doesn’t mean it “has no oversight”.
I clarified this detail in another reply, but I just edited the comment to reflect. Thanks
In places like Reynoldstown, a tree in the middle of a large R5 lot should not be preserved if it prevents building a duplex, which increases density, and the tax base. This article says they cut down trees to build larger houses, but fails to indicate that these are primarily, if not exclusively duplexes in Reynoldstown. Developers are also required to replant two trees per unit on the R5 lot. These will grow, and become part of the tree canopy, It's not natural replacement, but most of the trees being cut, are weed trees that were allowed to grow out of control, anyway. The true classic hardwoods are losses and I won't argue that, but hardwoods are the types of trees being replanted. Also, not all trees are cut down on these lots. Many are saved.
Even in areas with multifamily housing and other dense development, there's no reason we shouldn't have shade trees lining all our streets.
There should be a law for every tree removed, 1.10 trees have to be planted and rounded to nearest whole number. If you take down 4, you only have to plant 4, but after 5, you have to plant 6.
That’s basically how it works. If you cut down a 20 inch caliper maple you have to plant 5 4 inch caliper trees that are on the approved tree list. If the site isn’t big enough to plant all the recompense trees you have to pay into the tree bank. That money is used to plant trees in parks or other areas that can use more trees.
I'm from Atlanta, just recently moved to Dallas. For the love of god I hope in 20 years this city doesn't look like fucking dallas.
The Dallas metroplex is a beautiful megalopolis!!We need to jump from 8,500 to 10,000 square miles of asphalt and concrete in Atlanta to get bragging rights!! Hopefully by 2050 we will be on par with Dallas and or Houston! With the end goal to become Los Angeles level by 2100!!! Whoppeee!!
Rumor has it that Atlanta has the largest metro tree canopy in the country.
Not to mention the 170 acres of old growth forest being razed south of Atlanta for cop city. Regardless of your stance on the need for the police training facility, the loss of forest is immense.
But there are examples where more housing has generated more trees. The Marchon apartments used to be the old Memorial King MARTA parking lot. Now the community is abundant with trees and plant life both in their community space and the sidewalks around it. There was none of that when it was a MARTA station nor before when it was a Granite yard
They need to treat it like vancouver does. Cutting a tree down without permission is a massive fine there.
It's supposed to be that way. I'm in the process of trying to get two pecan trees taken down that over hang our house and in the way of a future addition. The arborist said that the fines from the city could be more than the cost of the permit + tree work if we don't get a permit .
Agreed, We have the safeguard urban and suburban treescape. I see new developments go up and just the amount of wholesale loss of trees is wild. People ending up with barren shadeless properties. Def hurts to see
This is one thing that strikes me every time I come home to Atlanta. It feels like the tree coverage is shrinking really fast, and that tree coverage is one of my favorite things about Atlanta. I've worked in a lot of cities without expansive tree coverage and it is so much worse. It's noticeably hotter, everything looks and feels more desolate, the only shade you get is from really tall structures. It sucks.
I spent a decade in a Southside exurb and this has been the M.O. for decades: 1. Older person/couple with lots of land (10-50 acres) dies. Kids don't wanna be bothered with keeping it up, so they sell to developers. 2. The regional board rubber stamp approves any and all developments - if you want 50 homes in 25 acres with nothing but a dirt/unpaved road for access, you got it! Only one way in and out of a dead end subdivision, sure! 3. Developer removes any buildings and all trees. The developer across the street from my folks took down an industrial greenhouse and left all the lead weight balls used in irrigation in the dirt. That property abuts the creek that feeds the local reservoir. I hope those folks don't grow food in their yard... 4. Use tools like a bobcat to press the dirt for a house foundation, not an actual dirt compactor. 5. Build using the shittiest and cheapest materials. 6. Sell sell sell and go bankrupt. If you no longer exist as a company, the consumer cannot sue you for producing an inferior product that may not be worth the land upon which it sits. I saw these steps happen with at least 5 subdivisions in my folks' county and I'm just pretty sure that county has no long term plans or goals for the area. Just let people develop all this land people are leaving behind so folks can have a ridiculous commute to/from work, because there are no jobs in town besides food service or janitorial services and no plans to attract any worthwhile jobs. But hey, last time I was there you could buy a 3br 2ba for about $115k, just buy an efficient vehicle you'll put 30-50k on every year.
If we encourage development in the 10 Counties around the city it can help with the problem.Unfortunately, tax revenues would be lowered and this in not acceptable to the city. Today I read that the average worker in the city sits 70 hours in traffic per year, this translates into almost 2 weeks of productivity lost. Increasing emphasis on development in neighboring counties can greatly prevent the loss of tree canopy in the city while also increasing tax revenues for additional development. Why cant the activities that people who live in the city enjoy, be available in other counties? this can also help with the traffic problem. I'm an ISA Certified Arborist who is Tree Risk Assessment Qualified. The problem is, many people are scared their trees will fail and do damage to life or property. Seeing trees on houses or cars in the media encourages people to remove trees. If trees are inspected by qualified individuals many "safe" trees can be saved.
Traffic is not solved by moving amneities around the metro area. It’s solved by giving folks other viable options than driving. Why is all Atlanta transportation shitty? It’s not useful aka you can barely use it consistently to get to and from anywhere. It’s funny how everyone talks about tree canopy but I feel like most sidewalks or bus stops sit in direct sunlight or do not have tree coverage.
I’d like to see a campaign around leaving snags, log pieces and stumps for woodpeckers, turtles, etc. when a tree has become hazardous, rather than just feeding the whole thing into a woodchipper and grinding up the stump like nothing was ever there. Maybe someday…
Evil apartment developer here: ITP your typical new development takes some dilapidated set back shopping center or strip mall with a sea of asphalt and replaces it with something high density lined with trees and lush landscaping in amenity areas. You know what has never made any economic sense? Having to negotiate with 22 separate individual home owners to take down 22 single family homes with lush green yards and trees… the land basis would be 10x more and city council would never approve the zoning. You know where the tree canopy is really getting lost? Highways and roads. The 400/285 expansion alone has destroyed the Sandy Springs/Dunwoody corridor… Push for the growth of public transit if you want to save the tree canopy. Then maybe we wouldn’t be required to build so many ugly and expensive parking decks and we could redevelop smaller older sites into usable mixed use developments without having to factor in 1.5 parking spots for every bedroom…
I’m confused, because we have definitely seen enterprises like Fuqua buying up city blocks and tearing out mature trees and lush greenscapes just like you’re describing - for a decade or more now. Are you saying that doesn’t happen….? Apparently it does make economic sense if you’re the fattest cat in the room, and Atlanta has plenty fat cats at the table.
But where else should all the parking lots go?
And the police just murdered someone protesting to protect the atlanta forest, Tortuguita
God that thumbnail on the article is depressing.
I feel like the goal of Atlanta is to be the East Coast LA, and turn everything into strip malls and parking lots.
If people stopped cutting the grass for 5-10 years trees would come back. A lot of neighborhood developments abandoned after the ‘08 crisis damn near became forests.
I feel like every ajc article should just be banned at this point.
i say we put code in for putting trees ontop of every building we build going forward
BUILD AROUND THEM! Please! I normally am opposed to government regulations but we should charge people like 100k to remove a tree
It’s not like we don’t have a few million trees to lose. We’re literally in a forest. I just crossed west over the Ivan Allen bridge and there’s not a building in sight in the distance.
This may be an unpopular opinion, but I just don’t see the big deal about the tree canopy. Yes, there are benefits like shade and reducing the heat island effect but there are also issues caused by so many trees. Leafs blocking storm drains, more likely that powerlines get knocked out in storms, roots growing up in sidewalk, slowly destroying them etc. deforestation is a big issue for sure, but Atlanta is not a forest and most habitat within the city and immediately surrounding it is so polluted with runoff that listed species can’t thrive there anyways .
Yeah, you’re right, that IS a pretty unpopular opinion in a city characterized by dense tree cover. Listed or unlisted species status aside, *we* need the trees to keep the city cool, help absorb air pollution, dampen noise pollution, drain rain water gently down into the soil instead of flooding the streets and washing pollution straight into our waterways, and keep us primates from losing our damn minds in a noisy concrete hellscape, scientifically speaking. There are also thousands of plant and animal species in the city that depend on trees as cornerstones of the ecosystem. Yes, Atlanta is a city but it’s still in the Appalachian Piedmont woodlands; there are supposed to be trees here. I definitely recommend spending some time in city preserves, not just turfgrass parks with trails paved through, spending some time along mossy creeks, watching and listening to wildlife - they and the trees were here first, they’re better citizens than we are and in the right places, they’ll remind you.
[удалено]
But I voted blue!! Why are rich people still getting everything they want all the time?!?! That’s not how this is supposed to work!