Chapter 8 Looking Back and Ahead at County Tree and Forest Policy
As Maryland’s most populous county, trees and forested areas in Montgomery County are among the vital natural assets we need to protect. There is no question that trees and green space enhance quality of life and are integral to the surrounding ecosystem. As we know, Montgomery County residents oversee a large part of the local tree canopy. The Montgomery County Tree Canopy Law FY22 Annual Report liii notes that, as of December 2022, 93% of trees planted using the Tree Montgomery program were on residential land throughout the county. This might be an indication that a high percentage of tree canopy is on privately owned land. Think of your yard as an opportunity for increasing tree canopy in our area.
A DEP employee helps a homeowner decide on a tree species to be planted by Tree Montgomery.
Looking back at forest and tree policy, in the late 1980s, residents in Montgomery County began expressing concern over tree loss in our communities. The first “Tree Report” was drafted by a Montgomery County Tree Ordinance Drafting Group in 1990. Some of the report findings were a catalyst for the county’s first tree legislation. The Montgomery County Forest Conservation Law was adopted in 1992 in response to the State of Maryland passing the Forest Conservation Act (FCA) in 1991. The State FCA allowed counties to enact their own forestry laws that could be stronger, but not weaker, than the FCA. Over the years, there have been amendments to strengthen the FCL. The FCL aims to protect, maintain, and plant forested areas for the benefit of County residents. The law is administered by the Montgomery Planning Department and primarily applies to property owners when development activity occurs. Certain projects may qualify for an exemption from the requirements of preparing, submitting, and implementing a forest conservation plan and provide mitigation for the disturbance. When it was written, the FCL was not drafted with urban areas of the county in mind. According to Cathy Conlon, a land use planner and former development review manager at the Montgomery County Planning Department, a goal at the time was to address upland forests in suburban and rural sections of Montgomery County. By 2000, there was a groundswell of public awareness regarding the value of trees and green space in urban sections of the county. In 2013, the Montgomery County Council passed the Tree Canopy Law and the Roadside Tree Protection Law to address tree loss in urban communities and in the public ROW. Fast-forward to 2022. A recent study, Technical Study on Changes in Forest Cover and Tree Canopy in Maryland , provides a grim picture of tree cover lost in Montgomery County, as well as in other parts of the state. As a help to local policy makers, the report also recommends ways to improve tree canopy overall in the state.
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