ATLANTA — The Atlanta City Council is set to review a decades-old tree ordinance, and while it’s doing so, they voted to let the Atlanta Beltline have free reign to chop down and replace trees throughout the city.
According to the ordinance passed Monday, the city council said that public space available on city land is limited, including in public right-of-ways.
The current Tree Protection Ordinance for the City of Atlanta “imposes certain requirements on City of Atlanta government’s own development and construction activities that may inadvertently slow or obstruct essential public infrastructure projects.”
The current tree ordinance requires that there is no net loss of trees within the city limits.
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As a result, the council said that could cause delays and increase costs without benefiting the public, so they were enacting a revised Tree Protection Ordinance so that public infrastructure projects that need to remove trees from private property, but would cause a net loss of trees in Atlanta, could move forward.
Going forward, the Atlanta Beltline, the Path Foundation, the Atlanta Department of Watershed Management, Atlanta Department of Transportation and Atlanta Department of Assets Management would be exempt from the tree-clearing related restrictions as officials work to update its provisions for a more modern Atlanta.
The exemption will last a year from passage, continuing through March 17, 2026, or when a revised Tree Protection Order is in effect, whichever comes first, according to documents from the Atlanta City Council.
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