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City of Arden Hills City Council Meeting for March12, 2018 P:\Planning\Planning Cases\2017\PC 17-029 - 3685 New Brighton Road Preliminary and Final Plat and Easement Vacation\Memos_Reports_17-029 Page 6 of 13 Tree Preservation The City adopted a Tree Preservation Ordinance in 2008 to minimize tree and habitat loss during development and to establish mitigation requirements for environmental impacts resulting from tree removal. The Tree Preservation Ordinance does not prohibit the removal of significant trees, but if more than 10 percent of the total caliper inches of significant trees are removed from a site then a developer or property owner is required to provide new tree plantings at a ratio of one new caliper inch for every two caliper inches removed. The City collects a financial surety in the amount of 125 percent of the estimated cost of the replacement trees, which is held for two years after planting to ensure the health of the new trees. If any trees that are identified as being preserved are removed or in a severe state of decline after this two-year period the City can require those trees to be replaced at a ratio of two new caliper inches for every one inch removed. The City may use the required financial surety for the new tree plantings to accomplish this if necessary. A Tree Preservation Plan is required as part of a Preliminary and Final Plat application. The applicant has provided a Tree Preservation Plan and a Landscape Plan (Attachment D). The survey indicates there are 72 significant trees on the sites, and 22 would be removed for the development. The majority (18) of these trees would be on Lot 1 to accommodate the building site and two basins. Four significant trees would be removed from the proposed Lot 2 and no significant trees would be taken down on Lot 3. The 22 significant trees that would be removed total 544 caliper inches. The required mitigation for this removal is 193.5 caliper inches of new tree plantings. Since the Planning Commission meeting on February 7, the applicant has submitted a revised Landscape Plan that increases the number of trees proposed to be planted on the site (Attachment D). The Landscape Plan now includes 53 new trees including 43 evergreen trees, 3 Red Oaks, and 7 Swamp White Oaks. The total number of replacement caliper inches would be 162.6 for a deficiency of 30.9 caliper inches. Caliper Inches Number of Trees Total Existing Significant Trees 1,567 72 10% Permitted Removal 157 -- Proposed Removal 544 22 Trees Preserved 1,037 50 Replacement Trees Required 193.5 -- Replacement Trees Proposed 162.6 53 Replacement Deficiency 30.9 -- The Zoning Code states that replacement trees are required to be planted on the same site from which the significant trees are removed, unless the City determines that the number of replacement trees required exceeds the number of trees that can practically fit on the site. The