SALISBURY — Two City Council members met with city staff and several developers this morning to hash out controversial proposed rules that would require businesses to plant more trees.
Council members Brian Miller and Karen Alexander said they wanted to better understand the rules. Alexander said she did not like a proposed requirement that developers must replant land that has been cleared, if the land sits idle for more than a year.
Planting seedlings and then ripping them out when the developer eventually finds a buyer would be a waste, Alexander said.
There appeared to be room for compromise on that requirement, as well as some other details of the rules, which were proposed by the city’s Tree Board as a way to curb air pollution.
Tree Board members at the meeting continued to press for protection of the tree canopy not for aesthetics, which they said is a good by-product of the regulations, but for environmental reasons.
Salisbury and Rowan County are part of a designated non-attainment area, a large region around the Charlotte area with poor air quality.
Read more Thursday.