Density and Trees

Growing Together, not Growing Apart

Highlights

• Trees are an important part of a great city• Density is more sustainable (water, air, emissions,

and energy use)• Preservation and mandates add to the

consumer’s housing costs• We need to quantify the costs and the benefits of

preservation when we make policy• Preservation should not be about stopping

growth

Costs Become Prices and Lost Housing

“The problem with the tree regulations is that they are not structured in a way that takes reasonable development into account, and they are not focused on the goal, which is to increase the amount of tree canopy in the city”

Costs Become Prices and Lost Housing

• When an exceptional tree is identified on a development site or on an adjacent site, regulations do not allow disturbance within the root zone

• This distorts the project design and reduces housing capacity, and increases prices.

• Projects in urban villages are allowed to remove an exceptional tree

• In practice, the ability to remove the tree must be approved by a design review process, and

• Boards are reluctant to concede that removal of the tree is justified.

Growth is People, Not Buildings

• Good policy balances individual tree preservation with overall expansion of canopy and open space

• Bad policy is hyper site specific missing the bigger picture

• Good policy would use data, not just site characteristics when considering preservation

We Can Grow Neighborhoods and Trees

“Canopy cover has increased within all urban villages in the study except Lake City, which has seen a small decrease. Ballard leads tree canopy coverage improvements with an increase of about 7% over the last 20 years.”

– 2014 Report of the Seattle Sustainable Neighborhoods Project (SSNAP)

Based on the data, our current policy is taking us in the right direction, favoring the trees over a tree. But there is room to grow.

Questions

• What is the best example of a dense built environment and trees coexisting that you have personally worked on?

• What is most annoying part of your job with regards to trees and open space?

• What three changes (laws, codes, incentives, etc.) could be instituted that would create a better urban forest in the future Seattle?