Two-thirds of Seattle voters concerned about tree loss with housing density increasing

Two out of three Seat­tle vot­ers say they are very or some­what con­cerned about tree and canopy loss as hous­ing den­si­ty increas­es, the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute’s lat­est city­wide poll of Seat­tle has found.

68% of 651 like­ly Feb­ru­ary 2023 spe­cial elec­tion vot­ers inter­viewed from Jan­u­ary 26th-30th for NPI by Change Research said they were con­cerned about tree and canopy loss, while 31% said they were not. Only 1% were not sure.

Of the total sur­veyed, 40% said they were very con­cerned, while 29% said they were some­what con­cerned. 18% were not too con­cerned and 12% were not con­cerned at all. That’s a mar­gin of greater than 2:1 over­all. When com­par­ing very con­cerned vot­ers to vot­ers not con­cerned at all, the mar­gin is almost 4:1.

Our past research has estab­lished that Seat­tleites believe that the city needs to both build more hous­ing and do a bet­ter job of pro­tect­ing its trees. Those goals are not incom­pat­i­ble. Thought­ful devel­op­ers have demon­strat­ed it’s pos­si­ble to rede­vel­op a lot with­out clear­ing away all of the flo­ra on the property.

But if the city does­n’t require thought­ful devel­op­ment, it won’t nec­es­sar­i­ly hap­pen of its own accord, because a con­ser­va­tion and tree pro­tec­tion eth­ic sim­ply isn’t the default for many devel­op­ers. Devel­op­ment revolves to a huge extent around reg­u­la­tions, as evi­denced by well over a cen­tu­ry of town plan­ning in this coun­try. Cities and towns that val­ue plazas, parks, trees, and oth­er com­mu­ni­ty ameni­ties have to insist on those pub­lic goods as part of their plan­ning and munic­i­pal codes.

This is an area in which Seat­tle lags behind many of its peers around the coun­try. Oth­er big cities are act­ing to address canopy loss. Seat­tle has­n’t done very much. No won­der, then, that two-thirds vot­ers in the Emer­ald City are con­cerned about trees dis­ap­pear­ing as hous­ing den­si­ty increas­es to meet pop­u­la­tion growth.

Here’s the ques­tion respon­dents saw and the answers again:

QUESTION: How con­cerned are you about tree and canopy loss in your neigh­bor­hood and the city as hous­ing den­si­ty increas­es to meet Seattle’s grow­ing population?

ANSWERS:

• Total con­cerned: 68% 
  • Very con­cerned: 40%
  • Some­what con­cerned: 29%
• Total not con­cerned: 31% 
  • Not too con­cerned: 18%
  • Not con­cerned at all: 12%
• Not sure: 1%

Our sur­vey of 651 like­ly Feb­ru­ary 2023 spe­cial elec­tion vot­ers in Seat­tle, Wash­ing­ton was in the field from Thurs­day, Jan­u­ary 26th, through Mon­day, Jan­u­ary 30th, 2023. All respon­dents par­tic­i­pat­ed online. The poll was con­duct­ed for the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute by Change Research and has a mod­eled mar­gin of error of 4.2% at the 95% con­fi­dence interval.

We pre­vi­ous­ly found big majori­ties of Seat­tle vot­ers sup­port­ive of ideas for pro­tect­ing trees — in the sum­mer of 2021 and again in the autumn of that same year. This lat­est find­ing demon­strates that canopy loss is some­thing that peo­ple across the Emer­ald City are wor­ried about, and think­ing about.

City lead­ers are think­ing about it, too.

The Urban Forestry Com­mis­sion and our friends at TreeP­AC have been work­ing for years to lay the ground­work for an updat­ed tree pro­tec­tion ordinance.

Now, their cause has been tak­en up by Seat­tle May­or Bruce Har­rell and Office of Sus­tain­abil­i­ty & Envi­ron­ment Direc­tor Jessyn Far­rell. The city recent­ly released its 2021 tree canopy assess­ment, show­ing a slow decline in canopy cov­er between 2016 and 2021, which empha­sized that canopy loss is not hap­pen­ing equitably.

“Crit­i­cal for ensur­ing Seat­tle’s stand­ing as a tru­ly emer­ald and ever­green city, trees pro­vide essen­tial ben­e­fits to our com­mu­ni­ties from heat mit­i­ga­tion to air qual­i­ty improve­ment and over­all well­be­ing. This decline in canopy cov­er means we need to do more to plant, pre­serve, and pro­tect trees to meet our goals for Seattle’s canopy, cli­mate, and com­mu­ni­ties,” said Seat­tle May­or Bruce Harrell.

“The infor­ma­tion in this report is inform­ing our upcom­ing efforts to dri­ve improve­ments — includ­ing new strate­gies to plant more trees and main­tain our exist­ing canopy, all while pri­or­i­tiz­ing equi­ty in neigh­bor­hoods who face the worst impacts of cli­mate change,” the may­or’s state­ment went on to say.

On March 7th, the may­or’s office and Coun­cilmem­ber Dan Strauss announced a new ini­tia­tive to increase the city’s tree canopy and plant and pre­serve thou­sands of trees. The effort con­sists of an exec­u­tive order signed by Har­rell and a pro­posed update to the city’s tree pro­tec­tion ordi­nance spon­sored by Strauss.

“We must act now to get back on track toward meet­ing our tree canopy goals and build the cli­mate-for­ward future we want to see,” said May­or Har­rell. “Fol­low­ing the data and lead­ing with equi­ty, this leg­is­la­tion and Exec­u­tive Order takes a One Seat­tle approach to plant­i­ng trees where they are most need­ed, address­ing canopy and afford­abil­i­ty issues in tan­dem, and mit­i­gat­ing the impacts of cli­mate change for front­line com­mu­ni­ties and res­i­dents in neigh­bor­hoods across the city.”

“I am incred­i­bly excit­ed to final­ly have the tree pro­tec­tion ordi­nance because this bill has been worked on for twen­ty years for some, thir­teen years for oth­ers, and five years for me. This bill pro­tects trees and cre­ates the mech­a­nism to plant, plan, and stew­ard the cli­mate resilient canopy Seattle’s future needs,” said Coun­cilmem­ber Dan Strauss in the joint statement.

When it comes to pub­lic pol­i­cy, the details real­ly matter.

The Har­rell-Strauss plan has sev­er­al good ele­ments, but could be strength­ened con­sid­er­ably, with more teeth added to ensure the city’s poli­cies allow imple­men­ta­tion to actu­al­ly match inten­tions. The ini­tial plan out­lined on March 7th empha­sizes pub­lic-pri­vate part­ner­ships, replant­i­ng require­ments, and added report­ing, along with a “One Seat­tle Tree Fund,” which could be col­lect­ed from fee-in-lieu pay­ments from devel­op­ers and pri­vate prop­er­ty owners.

But it removes pro­tec­tions for sig­nif­i­cant trees that are six to twelve inch­es in diam­e­ter at breast height (DBH), a com­mon met­ric for mea­sur­ing tree size.

On unde­vel­oped lots, a greater num­ber of “Tier 3” trees in a span of three years could be removed in neigh­bor­hood res­i­den­tial, lowrise, midrise, com­mer­cial, and mized zones. (The draft ordi­nance clas­si­fies trees by tiers — 1, 2, 3, and 4, with Tier 1 con­sti­tut­ing the most sig­nif­i­cant trees in terms of their size.)

The draft also does not require that tree inven­to­ry and land­scape plans be done pri­or to the issuance of build­ing per­mits, like Port­land, Ore­gon already requires.

And it still only requires one or more trees for tree removal replace­ment that at matu­ri­ty equals canopy lost, which is problematic.

The ordi­nance would ben­e­fit from hav­ing a sep­a­rate tree plant­i­ng and preser­va­tion fund admin­is­tered by a city forester, like Port­land does, rather than hav­ing the Seat­tle Depart­ment of Con­struc­tion and I col­lect­ing the funds.

The may­or and Coun­cilmem­ber Strauss are to be com­mend­ed for putting a plan on a table. But it needs strength­en­ing. Canopy loss is going to con­tin­ue unless the city gets seri­ous about pro­tect­ing its exist­ing trees… not just col­lect­ing mon­ey when a devel­op­er or landown­er wants to chop trees down, and not just plant­i­ng new trees that will take decades to reach matu­ri­ty. A robust tree pro­tec­tion ordi­nance is a pre­req­ui­site for revers­ing the cur­rent trend and get­ting the Emer­ald City on a tra­jec­to­ry to become a place where trees are tru­ly val­ued and thrive.