Home in Tacoma Phase Two: Let’s Say Yes to Trees and Housing!
By creating pathways for more homes and more trees in the landscape, Home in Tacoma could go down as one of the most important environmental and climate actions of our generation.
The City of Tacoma is making huge progress on its tree policies this year! A new ordinance regulating trees on public property went into effect this summer. It’s a big deal.
But what is the City’s approach to trees on private property? The short answer is: “Hands off, not our problem!” Trees that happen to be growing on private property currently have zero protections in Tacoma! When developers want to build on residential property, they aren’t required to keep any trees, no matter how big and beautiful they are. And they are not required to plant any new trees outside of the right-of-way streetscape.
That could change soon, thanks to the new package being considered by the City Council known as Home in Tacoma Phase Two. The Home in Tacoma process has given us a once-in-a-generation opportunity to imagine our city of the future and design the right balance of development and sustainability for residential areas. This package represents bold and necessary action on both the housing crisis and the urban forest crisis at the same time—now they just have to vote YES!
Many neighborhood trees are located in backyards behind single-family homes and are frequently sacrificed to development. Tacoma has never had any protections for trees on residential property and has the lowest tree canopy coverage of any city in Western Washington. Photo: Lowell Wyse.
PRIVATE TREES = PUBLIC BENEFITS
If you follow us at Tacoma Tree Foundation, you probably already know that Tacoma has the lowest tree canopy coverage of any city in Western Washington. 20% of our land area is covered with trees, and the City of Tacoma has set a goal of reaching 30% tree canopy coverage by 2030. The trees we do have are unfairly distributed. And yet, unlike cities like Lakewood (27% tree coverage) and Seattle (27%), Tacoma has no legal protections for trees on private property. (There’s a reason we’re in last place!)
When it comes down to it, having a goal for tree canopy coverage is about managing the landscape in a way that maximizes public benefits for environmental health, human health, the local economy, and quality of life. Or, to put it a different way, it’s about designing a city that people want to live in!
That’s where Home in Tacoma comes in. Although it started as a common-sense zoning reform (later required by state law, HB1110), Home in Tacoma has become one of the most important climate and environmental actions of our time. By allowing for more housing types in neighborhoods where, for generations, only single-family homes were allowed to be built, Tacoma is charting a course for allowing more people to live more efficiently and sustainably. Creating more homes in urban areas helps to slow the suburban sprawl that is engulfing Pierce County and contributing to deforestation. Yet the possibility for more buildings filling in Tacoma’s landscape also means that trees could be cut down to make room for them.
One example of badly needed ”middle housing” or “missing middle housing” (buildings that fall somewhere between single-family houses and large apartment complexes) in Tacoma’s Lincoln District (front and back). Under current City of Tacoma codes, trees were allowed to be removed without permitting or penalty prior to construction; new trees were not required to be part of the design. Photo: Lowell Wyse.
The Planning Commission recently submitted a final draft of its recommendations on Home in Tacoma (summarized here) for consideration by Tacoma City Council, which plans to vote on the package this fall. Crucially, the package includes new landscaping standards for residential property, which would require property owners to consider tree canopy coverage. When new housing is built, developers would be required to pay for any substantial trees that are cut down (with the money hopefully earmarked for urban forestry programs). And the largest healthy trees would finally be fully protected (illegal to cut down)! A Health Impact Assessment and draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for Home in Tacoma, Phase 2 both showed that preserving existing trees (a.k.a. “tree retention”) is an important strategy for reducing the environmental harms that might result from this city-wide rezoning effort.
Next on the schedule will come a final draft of the environmental impact statement, then a series of city council meetings. Those will include a study session, a first reading of the final ordinance, and a second reading of the ordinance (where a vote will take place). So we are almost at the finish line!
WHY IT MATTERS
The City of Tacoma’s unwillingness (so far) to regulate trees on private property is one of the primary reasons why Tacoma has so few trees in neighborhoods. It’s part of why it has not made progress toward its adopted policy of shading 30% of Tacoma’s land area with trees by 2030 (up from 20% in 2017). Properties formerly zoned “single-family residential”—the areas being reclassified through Home in Tacoma—have a collective tree canopy coverage of just 17%; yet they represent roughly 50% of Tacoma’s land area and one of the largest areas of opportunity for future tree planting. Private property has fewer infrastructure conflicts than the right-of-way, which poses challenges like underground pipes, overhead lines, compacted soils, and insufficient planting space.
Example of missing middle housing proposed for this grassy lot in Tacoma’s Lincoln District. Current design standards do not require trees or plantable space except in the public right-of-way. Home in Tacoma would place a value on existing trees and require developers to meet canopy requirements on every lot throughout the rezoned areas. Photo: Lowell Wyse.
Without establishing some private property tree requirements, the City has no path to achieving its 30% tree canopy goal. In reality, we will have to grow the tree canopy in these residential areas from 17% to more than 30% to reach that city-wide goal. That means preserving the trees we have and planting so many more. Home in Tacoma Phase One already eliminated single-family zoning. (Good riddance!) On its own, that action would have bad results for the environment: It would reduce our tree canopy by allowing residential properties to fill in with more buildings and more pavement while not requiring trees. That’s the situation we’re in now: no tree protections, no tree requirements, just more and more land being converted to gray infrastructure every day.
And that’s why the volunteer Planning Commission has been working so hard with City staff and consultants to craft a new set of standards that aim for a balance of housing density and green infrastructure: both more homes and more trees. The current Home in Tacoma Phase Two package would:
put a stop to our current era of residential properties being clearcut at the time of new development
mandate that a portion of the residential landscape be reserved for trees and other green infrastructure
place a value on our existing mature trees that could be partially recovered fees applied whenever exceptions are made (such as healthy trees being removed) and fines (when the new law is not followed).
generate revenue to pay for adopted urban forestry priorities.
This is common-sense planning. Other PNW cities have been doing it for decades! It’s a way of ensuring that Tacoma’s residential areas keep delivering public benefits in the way of more homes, more shade, and more breathable air. It’s about designing residential areas that people want to live in, which is great for the local economy: an investment well worth making.
Trees and shrubs in residential areas make Tacoma beautiful and provide countless public benefits. Home in Tacoma is charting a course for growing more housing AND more trees!
Photo: Lowell Wyse.
IT’S TIME FOR ACTION
What’s unique about this moment is that Tacoma has the historic opportunity to implement unified codes that will enable the growth critical infrastructure of trees and “middle housing” at the same time. That will provide the direction that developers need to build a new generation of homes that benefit the whole community.
To be clear: The development community does not want to have to plan for trees. When it comes time for final public comments on Home in Tacoma Phase Two, the Master Builders and their allies will say that:
Tacoma should not regulate trees on private property
Planning for trees is too difficult and confusing and expensive, and
We need more buildings no matter how it feels for us to live in them.
But creating new residential design standards without updating the landscaping requirements would be a horrible mistake. If Council attempts to pass the housing design standards alone and cut out the proposed landscaping code updates, it will be impossible to regulate trees later. As the Planning commissioners (and hopefully the City Planning staff) have learned over the past few years, trees and homes are so connected that they must be considered together as part of a smart design process. The current Home in Tacoma package strikes a really good balance, ensuring trees are included in lot designs according to the industry standards incorporated by the consulting team at Mithun.
There are many ways that this process could still go wrong or have some bad results. For example, how certain are we that the new codes will be enforced? How easy will it be for developers to receive the exceptions to the tree requirements they are lobbying for? We plan to cover these questions in a future post.
On the one hand, if City Council decides to delay the vote or insert more loopholes for developers, they will be sending a clear message that they do not want to increase our tree canopy coverage, that they are happy to continue letting developers clearcut and pave over the landscape, and that it is alright to build homes without access to the many human and environmental health benefits of trees.
On the other hand, passing Home in Tacoma Phase Two will send a message that Tacoma is truly planning for the future. We are creating practical legal pathways to having more trees integrated into residential neighborhoods. By growing more housing and more trees, we are designing a city that is greener and more resilient to climate change.
This is also the best chance we will ever have for stopping the unnecessary cutting of trees on private property and requiring trees alongside new development. And Tacoma would make history by being the first community in Washington to pass common-sense design standards for trees and middle housing at the same time!
That’s why Home in Tacoma is the most consequential proposal we have ever seen for making Tacoma a better place to live. Tell your City Council members that they should pass the zoning and landscaping standards recommended by the Planning Commission as part of Home in Tacoma Phase Two!
Here’s how you can help:
Share this story with your community.
Read more about Home in Tacoma, including the draft code changes here.
Attend the information sessions (see below) and participate in the public process.
Contact your City Council representatives for your district and “at large” (city-wide).
To read the public comment letter submitted by Tacoma Tree Foundation on the Draft Home in Tacoma Phase Two package in March 2024, click here.
Comments and Public Hearing:
Note: This blog post reflects Home in Tacoma as it stands in August 2024. The policy proposal is still subject to change.
