Natural Resources - Forest and Tree Conservation For the purpose of amending the Forest and Tree Conservation provisions of Article 7 of the Baltimore City Code to comply with new State requirements, to coordinate with other City environmental requirements, and to align the Code with existing policy; correcting certain references; allowing for mitigation to be provided through forest mitigation banks located within the City; updating the requirements for mitigation fee usage; aligning the allowed uses of forest conservation funds with the definitions allowed by the State; adding annual reporting and biennial review requirements, as required by the State; reducing the amount of required land that triggers a review to conform with the amount of required land for grading or building permits; requiring that a Forest Stand Delineation be an element of other reviews, including Site Plan Review, subdivision, grading, and erosion and sediment control; requiring that all grading and building permits, and sediment, and erosion control, subdivision, or development plan approvals be conditioned on approval of and compliance with an approved Forest Conservation Plan; modifying mitigation fees to conform with Critical Area and Landscape Manual mitigation fees and modifying the amount of violation fines; adding a definition for “critical root zone” to the Code and modifying the definition of “specimen tree”; allowing notifications to applicants to be sent by email; adding a specimen tree mitigation policy to the Code; requiring that applicants notify adjacent property owners for significant impacts to off-site specimen trees; establishing a procedure, with criteria and requirements, for modifying existing forest conservation easements; clarifying that variances may be granted in advance of activity requiring Forest Conservation approval and that variances may not be granted after violation of the provisions of this Code; and generally relating to forest and tree conservation; and approving and adopting a new Baltimore City Forest Conservation Manual (2020 Edition).

Committee

City Council

Requested by

Dept. of Planning

Introduced

June 22, 2020

Passed

September 29, 2020

Enactment no.

20-401