POR 2016 #174 · Agenda item attachment · Jun 20 2016

City of Cambridge O-2 ORIGINAL ORDER IN CITY COUNCIL June 20, 2016 COUNCILLOR DEVEREUX COUNCILLOR CARLONE WHEREAS: Trees provide significant benefits to the community, including improving air quality, conserving energy, providing shade, mitigating noise pollution, offering habitats for birds and other wildlife, reducing storm runoff, increasing real property values and beautifying neighborhoods; and WHEREAS: Climate change has underscored the necessity for densely populated urban areas like Cambridge to maintain a robust tree canopy while heightening the public’s concern over the many challenges facing urban trees; and WHEREAS: The majority of the City’s trees are located on private property, yet their presence benefits the entire community, not only the property owner; and WHEREAS: The City of Cambridge’s Tree Protection Ordinance, Chapter 8.66 of the Cambridge Municipal Code, states that the “preservation of existing trees and the promotion of new tree planting is a public purpose that protects the public health, welfare, environment and aesthetics of the City of Cambridge and its citizens”; and WHEREAS: Chapter 8.66.50 of the Tree Protection Ordinance requires that large projects requiring a special permit must complete a Tree Study, and if there is a Significant Tree (a tree measuring more than eight inches in Diameter at Breast Height) to be removed, the owner must either plant a Replacement Tree(s) on the same lot, ensuring that the total DBH of the Replacement Tree(s) is equal to the total being removed, or pay the cost of Replacement Tree(s) and associated maintenance costs into the City’s Tree Replacement Fund; and WHEREAS: The Tree Protection Ordinance offers no mechanism for valuing the community benefits of Significant Trees on private property that may be removed outside of the special permit process; and WHEREAS: Many municipalities nationwide (including Wellesley, MA) have adopted regulations to protect trees on private property, either requiring owners who wish to remove a significant tree on private property the option to replant or pay into a tree replacement fund or requiring a permit to remove any significant tree on private property; now therefore be it ORDERED: That the City Manager be and hereby is requested to confer with the City Arborist, the Department of Public Works, and all other appropriate City departments to suggest

reasonable and feasible updates to the Tree Protection Ordinance to provide broader protections for trees on private property; such measures could include requiring owners who remove trees to plant Replacement Trees or pay into the Tree Replacement Fund and/or requiring a permit to cut down a tree on private property; and be it further ORDERED: That amount of the required payment into the Tree Replacement Fund be reviewed in light of the increased costs to the City of planting, watering and maintaining new trees; and be it further ORDERED: That the City Manager be and hereby is requested to report back on this matter and on other efforts to plant and protect trees at a public hearing of the Health and Environment Committee to be scheduled in the early fall of 2016.