Boulder Planning Board to take on tree regulations Thursday

Of the estimated 400,000 trees in Boulder, only about 10 percent are on public lands and therefore regulated by city codes.

The Boulder Planning Board could begin to change that on Thursday, when it considers sweeping regulations that could designate some privately owned trees as historic landmarks, require permits to remove healthy trees on private property and require developers to replace trees they remove for projects.

If the Planning Board approves and the City Council agrees, some minor changes could be adopted within a few months. More substantial changes, such as how the city would go about designating trees landmarks, will be part of a more involved review process that is expected to take a year.

Phase I of the proposed changes would include creating a licensing process to certify arborists, require a tree inventory for private properties undergoing development, require landscaping plans to be turned into the city and requiring property owners to guarantee they will maintain landscaping under submitted plans.

Phase II would include more substantial measures, including a citywide inventory of all mature trees to help identify green giants that could qualify as protected landmarks. That designation could make it very difficult for homeowners to remove or otherwise alter such trees.

In a memo on the proposed changes, the staff noted that several options might not be well-received by the public, either because they infringe on property rights or hinder development. Thursday night's public hearing was originally scheduled earlier this month but postponed after hundreds of people showed up to weigh in on proposed medical-marijuana regulations.

The Planning Board itself, meanwhile, has undergone a change of its own that could affect upcoming decisions.

KC Becker, who was appointed to the board last March, resigned Tuesday so she could accept the Boulder City Council seat that she won in the Nov. 3 election.

Becker's seat on the board will remain vacant until the normal recruiting process takes place in January with a replacement named in March.

That leaves six members on the Planning Board for now, and the possibility of 3-3 tie votes. In those instances, measures being voted on would automatically fail.

Contact Camera Staff Writer Heath Urie at 303-473-1328 or urieh@dailycamera.com.