A. Policy. It being the policy of the City of Canby to preserve healthy, mature trees wherever possible within its city limits, a system of landscape area credits is hereby established as an incentive for property owners and developers to preserve existing healthy, mature trees and to include them in the landscape plan for a proposed development.
B. Purpose. The primary goal of the landscape credit is to prevent haphazard removal and destruction of trees and tree groves, in Ord.er to preserve the ecological health, aesthetic character, and quality of life in Canby. Tree retention provides substantial benefits, including but not limited to erosion prevention, reduction in storm-water runoff, improved water and air quality, energy conservation, carbon sequestration, reductions in the development impacts on the stormwater drainage system, and better transition between adjacent land uses.
C. Landscape Credit.
1. Program for Landscape Credit. One hundred percent (100%) of the area preserved under any mature, healthy tree or grove of trees retained in the landscape (as approved by the Site and Design Review Board) may be counted directly toward the percentage of landscaping required for a development.
2. Limit to Landscape Area Credit.
a. Landscape credit for preserved trees or tree groves shall not eliminate or reduce the landscaping requirements pertaining to parking lots, buffering, and screening.
b. Landscape credits for individual trees shall not comprise more than 40 percent of the total landscape requirement. For example, in districts requiring 15 percent landscaping, preserved tree area shall not count toward more than 9 percent of the requirement).
C. Landscape credits for preserved tree groves shall not comprise more than 60 percent of the total landscape requirement. A grove is defined as a stand of three or more healthy, mature trees located close together to provide some overlap in canopy coverage.
3. Trees Near a Property Line:
a. When the drip line of a tree extends beyond the owner's property line, credit can be granted for that portion of the drip line within the property line if that area exceeds 75 percent of the total drip line area. Trees so close to the property line that their drip line area is less than 75 percent of the total, can only be given credit if a qualified arborist, nurseryman or landscape architect can assure the survival of the tree and its long term health if root damage is sustained by future development on the adjacent property.
b. Where trees have been preserved near a property line, such that the drip line of the tree spreads onto adjacent property, credit can be obtained by the adjacent property owner for protection of the drip line area that extends onto that adjacent property.
D. Trees and tree groves to be preserved and counted toward the landscape credit shall be identified on the landscape plan. (Ord. 890 section 48, 1993; Ord. 848, Part IV, section 5, 1990; Ord. 1338, 2010)