When I last wrote about the ordinance I introduced to update Annapolis's forest conservation code, I flagged a gap I was worried about and told you I was working on a companion measure to close it. We have since gotten an answer on that gap, and the ordinance has moved through two committees. Here is where things stand.

The gap I was worried about does not exist

My concern was about the new state provision for large multifamily buildings. On a site with no existing trees, I worried such a project might owe nothing at all: no forest to replace, and the exemption switching off the requirement to plant new trees. I said I was preparing a companion ordinance.

Our City Forester, Brian Adams, put the question straight to the Maryland Department of Natural Resources. Their Urban and Community Forestry Program Manager came back with a clear answer: the multifamily provision is not really an exemption, it functions as a discounted rate, and afforestation, the requirement to plant trees on sites that have none, still applies.

So the hole is not there. I had been prepared to move a companion ordinance, and for a stretch I was leaning toward supporting a temporary pause on new forest conservation applications to buy time for it. Neither was necessary.

I am glad I asked before legislating. The right first move is often a question, not an ordinance.

Two things I have been trying to fix for years

The most substantial amendment fixes two problems I have raised before without success, and which the new state law has now forced.

The first is a phrase: "complete and correct." Under our current code, when the City reviews a forest conservation plan, it does not actually approve it. It finds the plan complete and correct, and any challenge has to ride along with a separate development decision later. I have tried to change this before and ran into staff opposition. It sounds like a technicality. It is not. Both the new state law and a Maryland Supreme Court case our Office of Law turned up hold that a forest conservation plan approval must be its own appealable decision. Ours was not.

The second is which body hears the appeal. Forest conservation appeals have been going to the Building Board of Appeals, which is the wrong body for a zoning matter and, as our Office of Law pointed out, has never adopted procedures governing how it hears cases. Moving these appeals to the Board of Appeals has been on my list for a long time.

Amendment 4 fixes both, for good. The plan becomes a real, dateable, appealable decision, and those appeals go to the Board of Appeals, where they belong. If you want the public to be able to challenge a bad tree-clearing decision, the appeal has to actually work. Today it does not.

The state caught up to us on stream buffers

A small thing that says a lot. Annapolis has protected stream buffers at 100 feet along perennial streams and 50 feet along intermittent streams for years. Going through the new state law line by line, I found the state had adopted those same distances.

We were not catching up to Maryland. Maryland caught up to us.

In defense of the newspaper

One amendment drew a skeptical question in committee, and I want to take it on directly.

Amendment 5 requires that when a forest conservation plan is approved, notice of the approval be published in the newspaper, paid for by the applicant rather than by you. A colleague was not sure it was worth doing, on the theory that nobody reads the papers anymore.

Respectfully, I disagree. I read two papers every day, and I know many of you do too. Given the choice, I would take a physical paper of record over a website or a social media feed any day. A paper of record is shared, permanent, and findable. It is not an algorithm deciding what you get to see.

And yes, I am aware of the irony of printing tree-clearing notices on paper. That is a real cost. But a healthy local democracy and an engaged citizenry require some sacrifices, and this is one I will take. You cannot appeal a decision you never knew was made.

The amendments

All are posted publicly, and the links below go straight to the documents. You will notice the list starts at 2. There was an Amendment 1, but it turned out not to be needed and was never introduced.

Amendment 2, stream buffers. Carries our buffer distances forward and closes a gap in the old code, which let the Planning and Zoning Director widen a buffer to prevent a "deleterious effect" without ever defining what that meant. Now there are real criteria: steep slopes, erodible soils, wetlands, sensitive species habitat. Clear standards protect everyone, the applicant included.

Amendment 3, annual reporting. Driven by the state's new requirements. Adjusts the reporting date and adds reporting on the acreage tied to the fees we collect and spend. If developers pay into a fund instead of planting trees, we ought to be able to say what that money bought.

Amendment 4, appeals. Described above.

Amendment 5, newspaper notice. Described above. I am narrowing this one: it originally also required mailed notice to neighboring property owners, but the state now requires that itself, so the mailed notice would have been duplicative. What remains is the newspaper publication.

Amendment 6, applicability. Once we pass this, it applies to any project that does not yet have an approved forest conservation plan. Without it, projects filed in the window between the state's July 1 effective date and our adoption could end up locked into the weaker state standard.

Amendment 7, cleanup. Housekeeping. Amendment 4 moves forest conservation appeals to the Board of Appeals, but a few references to the old board survived elsewhere in the ordinance. This sweeps them. Being drafted now and will be posted with the others.

The full ordinance and all attachments are on the City's page for O-16-26.

Where it stands

The Environmental Matters Committee, which I chair, recommended the ordinance favorably with Amendments 2, 3, 4, and 6. Rules and City Government recommended 2, 3, and 6. Amendment 5, the newspaper notice, goes to the floor. I expect a full Council vote at the end of July.

None of this is glamorous. Buffer criteria, appeal procedures, reporting dates, legal notices. But this is where tree protection actually lives or dies, in the paragraphs nobody reads. I read them. That is the job.

Questions or thoughts, send them my way.