Can't go wrong with green

A healthy urban forest makes for a healthy community, says Steve Houser, so we need strong tree and landscape ordinances. 

Published December 20, 2017, By STEVE HOUSER for DMN's VIEWPOINTS

It's in the community's best interest for Dallas to approve strong tree and landscape ordinances, says Steve Houser. 

Updates to the Dallas tree and landscape ordinances were recently approved by the City Plan Commission and are now headed to the City Council. At stake: the health and well-being of citizens and economic/envi­ronmental sustainability.

Will Dallas choose to be a good steward for its citizens, the economy and the environment? Or will it again kowtow to developers and build­ers?

No matter how stringent the current tree ordinance may be, the existing planned-devel­opment loophole has over the years allowed tens of thousands of inches in tree diameter to be removed without replacement or mitiga­tion. 

The highest priority of Dallas' Urban Forest Advisory Committee for ordinance revisions is to seek full  compliance with landscape and tree ordinance requirements when filing for a planned development. Without this require­ment, the ordinances have no real teeth.

City Plan Commissioner Tony Shidid re­cently offered a compromise requiring writ­ten disclosure regarding the effects of the two ordinances in the proposed PD application. City officials are not always informed about the number of trees being removed and not replaced or mitigated by paying into the refor­estation fund. 

Although Shidid's compromise is a step in the right direction, it falls short of requiring full compliance with the two ordinances.

Builders and developers are lobbying the council to weaken the ordinance revisions by increasing the size of a protected tree, reducing the number of protected tree species and allow­ing reforestation funds to be used for unworthy purposes. Such changes would diminish the stated goals of the ordinance. According to scientific research, the larger the tree, the more benefits it provides. All trees provide a multi­tude of benefits.

The reforestation fund is made up of mitiga­tion dollars for trees removed from a site but not replaced there. The fund has more than $7 million.

By current ordinance requirements, the funds can only be used to purchase trees for public property or to  purchase forested prop­erty. The recommended changes allow for the reforestation funds to be used to manage our urban forest and to manage conservation ease­ments. Since dollars in the fund represent trees that were lost and should be replaced, other uses should not be allowed.

While in past years, reforestation funds have been spent sparingly, the Urban Forest Advisory Committee has successfully pressed the case for a new division of forestry, which will need the funds for planting trees. 

Other important recommended changes that should be considered by the City Council can be found at  dallastrees.org. 

City officials have an opportunity to greatly improve our quality of life and environmental conditions, or they can continue the keep-the­-dirt-flying-at-all-costs mentality. 

Protecting and restoring nature is critical in achieving a better ecological and socioeconomic balance. A healthy urban forest makes for a healthy community. It is that simple. We have a moral obligation to leave a healthier Dallas for future generations to enjoy. 

Steve Houser is a past chair of the Dallas Urban Forest Advisory Committee. He wrote this column for The Dallas Morning News.