In the shadow of last month’s clear-cutting of a forest near High School Road, the Bainbridge Island City Council accepted several recommended changes last week to the city’s landscaping and tree regulations.

The changes have been a long time coming. A tree ordinance ad hoc committee has met 11 times since January to compile recommendations.

More revisions are planned, but the tree ordinance ad hoc committee’s first chapter of recommended changes will put more emphasis on preservation of trees in the mixed-use town center/High School Road zoning district.

“The overarching goal that the community kept in mind was how to maintain an increase of trees and tree canopy in these areas while recognizing the desire for compact, urban development, which currently is kind of our growth strategy in our comprehensive plan,” said city planner Jennifer Sutton.

To encourage the planting of even more trees, the committee asked the council to consider starting a Street Tree Program that would fund planting new trees around the downtown and High School Road commercial areas.

More attention was also given to saving existing trees.

The ad hoc committee recommended the city up the ante on Bainbridge’s “significant tree” label, so any tree with an 8-inch diameter or higher in any of Bainbridge’s town centers and the High School Road commercial area be considered “significant.” The change would increase the amount of trees considered significant on Bainbridge.

Under the city’s existing regulations, Evergreens are considered “significant” when they have a 10-inch diameter at breast-height, and deciduous trees are “significant” at 12 inches.

Along with broadening the “significant” label to include smaller trees, the committee also asked the council to place stricter criteria around the removal of “significant” trees.

The committee recommended a permit be required when removing any significant tree, rather than the standard of six or more significant trees, as the municipal code currently states.

Likewise, approval for tree removal shouldn’t be granted unless the tree is diseased, dead or determined hazardous.

Property owners, however, will still be able to remove “significant” trees for construction or to maintain utilities if no other feasible alternative is available.

The committee also recommended the council adopt a resolution that would pass the Heritage Tree Program from the Community Forestry Commission — a group that no longer meets — to the Historic Preservation Commission.

Under the Historic Preservation Commission, the Heritage Tree Program will be added into the city’s zoning regulations to preserve trees that not only have historical and cultural significance but also have unique characteristics.

Some valued features of a “heritage tree” include uncommon genus, species, form, size or location.

Any person can nominate a tree or group of trees for heritage status. The property owner, however, must sign a consent statement.

The heritage tree is then retained by the property owner; it does not become the property or responsibility of the city.

A heritage designation does not prohibit the property owner, though, from developing the property or removing the heritage tree at a later point.

Olaf Ribeiro, a Bainbridge resident and longtime tree preservation advocate, told the council that he was buoyed by the improvements the ad hoc committee recommended.

“I’ve been asking for a tree ordinance since 1990, so I’m really encouraged that, finally, we’re getting a tree ordinance,” Ribeiro said.

“I think we’ve come a long ways in the few meetings we’ve had … We put in a meaningful, enforcement policy on this tree ordinance, because without enforcement, the tree policy would be meaningless.”

The Bainbridge council voted unanimously to approve the changes to the city’s tree regulations as well as the transfer of the Heritage Tree Program from the Community Forestry Commission to the Historical Preservation Commission.

The committee will work next on regulations that apply to subdivisions, residential areas and the business industrial district.

It will also review the vegetation management chapter of the city code, “Which, in staff’s opinion, is very poorly worded and organized and confusing,” Sutton said.

The committee is made up of council members Dave Ward, Sarah Blossom and Roger Townsend and planning commissioners Mack Pearl and Jon Quitslund.