Cambridge extends ban on tree removal for another year – Wicked Local Cambridge

City Council has extended a moratorium on removing trees from private property for another year.

The council voted Monday, 7-2, to extend the moratorium to Dec. 20, with councilors Denise Simmons and Tim Toomey voting against. The council adopted the ban through a temporary amendment to the citys Tree Protection Ordinance last February, and it was originally scheduled to expire March 11. The council is currently waiting to receive recommendations from the Urban Forest Master Plan Task Force on lasting changes the group would like to make to the Tree Protection Ordinance, according to the council's policy order sponsored by Councilor Quinton Zondervan. The recommendations were originally scheduled to be released in June but were delayed, and the extension prevented the moratorium from expiring before the council could consider new language to the ordinance.

According to the order, allowing the moratorium to expire before the new language could be added would have resulted in a massive citywide cutting spree, worsening our canopy decline and erasing any positive impact the temporary amendments might have had.

Along with passing the extension to the moratorium, the council also expressed its intent to pass comprehensive amendments to the Tree Protection Ordinance based on the recommendations from the Urban Forest Master Plan Task Force ahead of the December deadline.

Zondervan said it's unclear at this point what kind of permanent changes will be made to the Tree Protection Ordinance, but one of the ideas is requiring property owners to come up with a replacement plan if trees need to be cut down.

"So, if a property owner said, 'I need to cut down this tree, but I'm going to plant three more over here,' that somehow that would be part of the law and would be allowed," said Zondervan. "That's how we deal with large projects; we require them to have a replacement plan. That's one example of the kind of thing we need to be considering."

The ban prevents residents from receiving permits to remove trees from their property. The city can issue fines of up to $300 per violation and $300 for each day the violation exists. Violators would also be responsible for the cost of replacing the tree at approximately $800 to $900 dollars per DBH [Diameter at Breast Height] inch. Homeowners with a residential exemption will pay only 10 percent or people on financial assistance will pay nothing when it comes to violations.

Trees removed for city park projects that provide significant negative impacts to existing adjacent structures and dead or dangerous trees are exempt from the moratorium, as well as trees that could be removed for the benefit of the overall tree canopy on properties densely populated by existing trees.

Heather Hoffman of Hurley Street, said she has spoken many times regarding her admiration of trees and said she was supportive of everything on the agenda Monday night that would give the city more trees.

The city of Cambridge should have a default setting of 'keep the tree,' Hoffman said. We dont, [and] we need to get there.

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Cambridge extends ban on tree removal for another year - Wicked Local Cambridge