Johnson

Preserving mature trees is of critical importance to the majority of Bend’s citizens. Last April the City Council appointed 15 citizens to the Tree Regulation Update Advisory Committee (TRUAC): engineers, architects, developers, planners, arborists, environmentalists and neighborhood representatives with extensive experience in their fields. They were asked to recommend measures for preserving larger trees, which involves consideration of numerous complex factors, among them state law, the need for housing, the practicalities of development and the difficulty of saving mature trees.

The city staff did an outstanding job. During nine TRUAC meetings, they provided 13 cities’ tree codes as examples and also a full analysis of eight Bend developments: lot size, designs, size of trees on site and number of trees actually preserved. These served as working models to gauge the effect of various proposal standards. A recap of each meeting was included on the TRUAC website for those who missed the actual meeting.

On June 20, 2024, the City Council will be reviewing a proposed tree protection code, PLTEXT20230178. Following is a general summary and example of how the proposed code may affect tree preservation in future developments.

Protected: all regulated trees, defined as 6” DBH or larger. DBH means diameter at breast height, 4.5’ from the ground.

More protected: priority trees defined as 20” DBH or larger.

The protection standards apply to all land divisions and site plan review applications for sites larger than one acre. Sites one acre or smaller must mitigate trees removed.

A full inventory and mapping is required of all regulated trees on site.

There are two preservation standards: 1) preserve 20% of the priority trees; or 2) preserve 25% of the total DBH of all regulated trees.

Mitigation Option 1: Replacement trees must be planted on-site to make up for anything less than 25% of the total DBH, based on a formula: one replacement tree for trees 6-9.9” DBH, two replacement trees for 10-19.9” DBH, and four replacement trees for 20” or larger DBH.

Mitigation Option 2: pay the city $600 in lieu of each replacement tree required but not planted on site.

A mandatory minimum number of trees (floor) must be retained on site: 5% of the total DBH of all regulated trees.

Here’s how these calculations would work in real life. Assume a development is proposed on a site with 20 regulated trees: 10 are priority trees, five are regulated trees of 6-9.9” DBH and five are regulated trees of 10-19.9” DBH. The total DBH of all 20 trees is 400”.

Option 1: The developer must retain 2 of the priority trees.

Option 2: The developer must retain 100” DBH using any combination of the 20 trees.

At least 5% DBH must be retained on site. Here, retaining one 20” tree would satisfy this mandatory floor (.05 x 400”=20”).

The 5% floor may be waived if the developer can demonstrate that its proposed design requires removal of trees to meet city standards concerning block length, connectivity, street, utilities or topography.

Mitigation. Assume the developer satisfies the 5% floor by leaving one 20”DBH tree and removing the other 19.

Option 1: the five 6-9.9” DBH must be replaced with five new trees on site (5×1). The five 10-19.9” DBH must be replaced with 10 new trees on site (5×2). The nine remaining 20” or larger must be replaced with 36 new trees on site (9×4). Total number of new trees which must be planted on site: 51.

Option 2: Instead of planting 51 new trees on site, the developer chooses to pay a fee in lieu of replacement. The fee would be 51 trees x $600/tree = $30,600.

Should these preservation standards be higher? Should payment in lieu of replacement be allowed? Should developers offer alternatives if their initial designs destroy too many trees? Let the City Council know what you think.

Do you have a point you’d like to make or an issue you feel strongly about? Submit a letter to the editor or a guest column.