By DAve HAMRICK
Staff Writer

It may soon get harder to dispose of a tree in the city of Fayetteville.

The city Planning Commission Tuesday is scheduled to vote on a proposed new, tighter tree protection ordinance designed to encourage developers to save existing trees rather than stripping construction sites and replacing the trees with new, smaller ones.

Fayette County's Planning Commission in recent months has been going through a similar process.

“Gone are the days of exotic ornamentals,” said city planner Maurice Ungaro during a Planning Commission work session last week.

Large, mature native trees help make the city more attractive and provide more environmental benefits, he said.

The proposed new ordinance would give existing trees twice as much weight as new ones in determining whether a developer has met its requirement that each development have at least 100 “tree density units” per acre, and it would provide rules for digging and grading around the preserved trees to prevent their being damaged in construction.

It also melds the city's tree preservation and landscaping requirements into a single ordinance, and provides for “shrubbery density units,” requiring 200 shrubs per acre. The old ordinance measures shrubbery according to the number of gallons of each bush's container. The new one adds a height requirement.

There are also requirements that developers identify “stands” of trees that can be preserved and include plans to do so. A stand is defined as a group of trees that have grown up together and therefore depend on each other.

“If you thin it out and just save all the oaks or all the sycamore trees and remove all the others, then you have tall, spindly trees that, left on their own, look out of place,” said Ungaro.

Rules for phased harvesting of timber on large tracts also are included in the proposed new law.

The Planning Commission is expected to take action at its business meeting Tuesday at 7 p.m. at City Hall.