On 9/25/00 Council conducted a worksession regarding draft policies for the use of City-owned forest mitigation sites. The policies have been modified based on Council's input. Along with these policies is an inventory of City-owned sites. The sites have been identified as having unforested, open land area on them, where forest mitigation could take place.
Since the adoption of the County's Woodland Conservation/Tree Preservation Ordinance in the late 1980's, local governments across the County have been faced with methods by which to effectively deal with forest mitigation. Typically during subdivision review of a development proposal a Tree Conservation Plan (TCP) is negotiated between the applicant and the M-NCPPC Environmental Planning staff. By County standards when a site of one acre or larger is proposed to be cleared for land development, a TCP must first be approved by the County Planning Board before a County building permit can be issued. When on-site mitigation cannot be achieved, an applicant is required to mitigate off-site. Upon determination that off-site mitigation is necessary, the TCP has a companion Mitigation Plan that is negotiated in the TCP preparation process. The burden is on the applicant to locate a receiving site, preferably within the County.
By County standards, a City-owned site used for forest mitigation will have a conservation easement established on it to identify the mitigation area. A conservation easement is the legal instrument that creates the mitigation area on a record plat of a particular site. Conservation easements are long-term encumbrances which make an area of a site no longer available for any other type of land use other than forest mitigation. Several City-owned property have such an encumbrance or conservation easement on them. A portion of the Hohensee property was used by the City for off-site mitigation associated with the development of Black Sox Park in the 1990's. As City-owned sites on the preferred list are used for forest mitigation, the tracking system will automatically lower the total amount of acreage available in the City's inventory based on the size of an agreed upon conservation easement area.
The subject report was made available to the stakeholders for their review. The Wildlife Habitat Advisory Group, the Beautification/Tree Preservation Committees and the Advisory Planning Board were included as stakeholders. It was important to include the first two groups, since aspects these two groups consider dovetail with forest mitigation considerations.
For purposes of clarification, two sources are used for a definition of the term "forest." In the Prince George's County Woodland Conservation and Tree Preservation Policy Document (February 1993) (Part 7 Glossary of Terms, page 19) a forest is defined:
Forest, Woodland, or Forest Cover means a biological community dominated by trees and other woody plants covering a land area of 10,000 square feet or greater. This includes areas that have at least 100 trees per acre with at least 50 trees that are two inches or greater in DBH [diameter at breast height]. This also includes areas that have been cut, but not cleared.
The Maryland Department of Natural Resources (MDNR) Forest Conservation Manual (December 1991) (Appendix A - Glossary of Terms , page A-4) defines the word "forest" verbatim to the above, except that the latter definition includes a sentence at the end that reads:
Forest does not include orchards.
A set of procedures has been prepared to assist staff in implementing the Forest Mitigation Program. Corresponding with the procedures is a site specific filtering mechanism, site data sheet and numerical rating system to be used at the appropriate time. This filtering mechanism will enable staff to determine how desirable a mitigation area may be on the sites on the preferred list.