Home > Projects > Tree Protection > Protecting Trees in Bellingham
WMTP Tree Protection
Protecting Crucially-Needed Trees in Bellingham Neighborhoods
Mature Trees in Bellingham Neighborhoods Are Essential for Climate Resiliency, Livability, and Health As The City Grows
WMTP Successes to Date
Provided Multiple In-Depth Analyses to Improve Several Local Policies That Impact Trees in Bellingham.
Informed Policymakers, Staff, and the Community About Landmark Tree Ordinance Realities.
Influenced Washington State Policies That Positively Impact Trees in Bellingham.
Created the First-Ever Bellingham Tallest Trees Interactive Map and High-Res Bellingham Urban Heat Extremes Map.
Completed Pushbacks on Selected Developments to Better Protect Mature Trees in Bellingham Neighborhoods
Developed Presentations & Articles on Nature-Integrated Planning
For details about any of the above, see below.
PAGE CONTENTS
- Introduction
- WMTP Advocacy — Key Components
- 1. Bellingham Landmark Tree Ordinance
- 2. Other Bellingham Tree Policy Advocacy
- 3. WA State Advocacy for Urban Trees/Forests
- 4. Neighborhood Canopy Assessments
- 5. WMTP’s Unique Aerial Mapping
- 6. Selective Development Pushbacks
- 7. Community Education
- Volunteer Opportunities
- Related Links/Resources
Introduction
Mature trees in Bellingham provide the most benefits and cost savings to our urban community. Mature trees in Bellingham significantly improve climate resiliency to increasingly-common extreme heat and flooding. Mature trees in Bellingham also provide a wide range of other benefits, such as cleaner air and water, biodiversity/ habitat support, carbon capture, buffers from traffic and noise, and improved quality of life and health.
At the same time, Bellingham needs more infill housing — especially smaller footprint, truly affordable homes. Commercial and institutional projects will inevitably increase, too. Does this inevitable increased density jeopardize the retention of crucially-needed mature trees in Bellingham?
Infill housing versus mature urban tree retention is not an either/or choice. BOTH goals are simultaneously achievable.
With mindful site planning, new infill development can frequently preserve most mature trees on-site to support the City’s tree canopy and climate resiliency goals — and still be economically viable to housing developers.
Most local residents want balance with these issues. They don’t want urban livability to slip away in the name of developer profits. Residents are deeply concerned about climate change and the increased need for climate resiliency. For residents of inner neighborhoods with less tree canopy who are thus more at risk from climate change, protecting mature trees in their neighborhood is also an important environmental equity issue.
WMTP Advocacy — Key Components
To encourage the above balance, WMTP devotes considerable time and resources to independent advocacy and analysis regarding trees in Bellingham — with policymakers, agency staff, residents, and stakeholders. Our urban tree advocacy work currently has seven components:
1. Bellingham Landmark Tree Ordinance
Enacted on an emergency basis in early 2024, Bellingham’s Landmark Tree Ordinance automatically protects most trees within the city that are 36″ or greater dbh (diameter at breast height). It also outlines a process to nominate additional Landmark trees or groves of significance for protection that do not meet the size threshold. (WMTP is available to assist neighborhoods and individuals who wish to do this. Please contact us.)
Although we did not help the City to write the emergency Landmark Tree Ordinance, community pressure spurred in part by WMTP helped to accelerate its adoption. Thanks in part to WMTP encouraging residents to submit public comments, the City Council voted unanimously in July 2024 and February 2025 to continue the emergency Landmark Tree Ordinance for another six months — not water it down or delete it.
The Landmark Tree Ordinance is a good step forward for our community that we strongly support. That said, the Landmark Tree Ordinance can be improved in a few key ways to improve its transparency, accessibility, accountability, and more. Click here to read our 2025 Bellingham Landmark Tree Ordinance analysis and suggestions for improvement. We look forward to advancing these issues as the ordinance is considered for permanent adoption during a Type VI hearing process with the Planning Commission and then City Council.
6 Truths About Bellingham’s Landmark Tree Ordinance
1. DBH Thresholds. Most other coastal cities in Washington and Oregon have stricter tree protection ordinances than Bellingham. They use tree size criteria such as 24″ or 30″ dbh (diameter at breast height) instead of Bellingham’s 36″ dbh threshold. Even with stricter tree protections, substantial private housing development has continued in those cities.
2. Public versus private. Most Landmark Trees within Bellingham are located in parks, Greenways and other public lands. Based on our mapping data, there are ~1,500 Landmark Trees on private parcels city-wide.
3. City Distribution. On private land, most Landmark Tree candidates are in South, Edgemoor, Samish, and Whatcom Falls neighborhoods. Most other Bellingham neighborhoods have fewer than 20 Landmark Trees. Four have none (Fairhaven, York, Sunnyland, City Center).
4. Exclusions. Some of the above map-identified Landmark Trees are black cottonwoods which are currently exempt from Landmark Tree Ordinance protection. Other Landmark Trees (perhaps as much as 5-10%) will be rated as in poor survivability condition (or a hazard tree) by an arborist and thus would not likely be retained in a new development.
5. Fair use. The Landmark Tree Ordinance has a fair use clause that allows applicants to remove one or more Landmark Trees to fulfill “fair use” legal provisions. This clause ensures no reduction of a site’s development potential, particularly on small private parcels.
6. Incentives. The Landmark Tree Ordinance gives the Planning Director discretionary authority “to reduce other development standards, such as setbacks, lot coverage, open space, and minimum parking requirements, upon a finding that the reduction will not create significant impacts.” All of these factors help to ensure continued profitability for developers who accommodate Landmark Trees within a site.
2. Other Policy Advocacy for Trees in Bellingham
Bellingham’s Urban Forest Plan (still in development) is another key policy document that will help to protect many trees in Bellingham.
WMTP has developed a detailed analysis of the draft Urban Forest Plan and provided much public testimony to (hopefully) improve the final report. WMTP will continue to closely monitor future actions and implementation of the Urban Forest Plan policies.
Similarly, WMTP has analyzed drafts of the Bellingham Comprehensive Plan 10-year update (in progress through 2025). Our goal is to ensure it addresses urban forest and neighborhood climate resiliency needs in its goals, objectives, and other guiding elements that will impact trees in Bellingham.
WMTP has also provided detailed feedback for the Lake Whatcom 5-Year Work Plan update and Bellingham’s Civic Athletic Complex Master Plan.
Note: All of the above WMTP advocacy reports/letters are available on our Useful Resources page.
3. WA State Advocacy Affecting Trees in Bellingham
At a Washington state level, when draft bills or codes arise in the Legislature (or come to various state agency Boards) which may positively or negatively impact trees in Bellingham and/or mature forests in Whatcom County, WMTP kicks into gear.
WMTP meets with and advises WA State policymakers when needed, often with our nonprofit partner Restoring Earth Connection in Olympia. We’ve had a few notable successes. Click here for more details.
4. Neighborhood Canopy Assessments
WMTP completed the first ever comprehensive Birchwood Canopy Assessment during 2024-2025 which involved much lidar mapping and analyses plus field verification by teams of volunteers. Birchwood will use this resource during 2025 and beyond to implement tree enhancement projects on various private parcels within the neighborhood.
Our detailed parcel-by-parcel assessment is a valuable bridge between overarching Urban Forest Plan policies that the City will adopt and specific resident- or business-driven projects on private land to enhance neighborhood tree canopy.
WMTP is available to do similar tree canopy assessments for other neighborhoods. Interested? Please contact us!
5. WMTP’s Unique Aerial Mapping
Bellingham policymakers and the community lack two important pieces of information that can help to inform site-specific and overarching decisions about trees in Bellingham.
a. Bellingham Tallest Trees Map. WMTP has independently created — using the latest (2022) lidar data from the WA Department of Resources, a unique Bellingham’s Tallest Trees map which can be used to identify where protected Landmark Trees are located throughout the city.
Bellingham Tallest Trees Map Tips
To customize the map’s display. zoom in, turn on/off different layers of data via its top right menu button (as shown below), and play with setting minimum/maximum height thresholds with the slider in the top right. See if there are Landmark trees near where you live or work, or in Parks or Greenways trails you frequent! You may be surprised at what you find!
When the map is set to ~115′ height threshold and “All Tallest Trees” is chosen in the map’s top right Layers menu, the map reliably shows most of our community’s potential Landmark trees. You can limit that further by choosing “Private Trees” or “Trees in Parks/Greenways,” etc. in the Layers menu.
b. Bellingham Extreme Urban Heat Map. We have also created — from USGS/NASA data sets — the first high-resolution Bellingham Extreme Urban Heat Map.
This map identifies where highest temperatures (“heat islands”) occur per Bellingham neighborhood during long, hot summer heat spells that are becoming increasingly frequent and extreme in our new climate era. Such an extreme heat spell during 2021, for example, killed 600+ people in Washington and hospitalized many more.
Our map can be used to identify the most potent locations per neighborhood to plant (and preserve) shade-producing trees in Bellingham to reduce heat island effects.
6. Selective Development Pushbacks
WMTP leads community-based efforts to modify large proposed developments which do not value retaining existing mature trees on-site or present inaccuracies in their compliance with the Green Factor of Bellingham’s Infill Toolkit or the City’s Landmark Tree Ordinance. Projects include:
- Bellingham Golf & Country Club’s Meridian Project (2023-24). Although our widely publicized effort was unsuccessful to save 320+ mature trees (some of Bellingham’s tallest!) at this development site, the community awareness we built added momentum and urgency for the City to approve an Emergency Landmark Tree Ordinance and to improve its draft Urban Forest Plan.
- Jones Development @ Mud Bay Cliffs (2024-25). WMTP has assisted concerned community members in publicizing and evaluating this proposed 38-home Edgemoor project atop sensitive cliffs and bay. For more details, please visit the Mud Bay Cliffs website.
- Squalicum Heights (2024-25). With the help of many neighbors, WMTP alerted Bellingham Planning Department staff to several mature trees that were under-measured in this development application. A correction was needed to determine which trees at this site are protected Landmark trees.
We prefer to directly collaborate with a developer early on to improve their project’s site planning. When that’s not possible, if needed we’ll build extensive media coverage, collect petition signatures, and provide detailed analysis and testimony during the project’s Hearing Examiner process.
We are also pushing to improve the City’s notification process for major proposed projects and its webpages related to developments that are currently confusing and difficult to use.
We also advocate for planning incentives (i.e. greater flexibility for building density, floor area, or height, impact fee waivers, expedited permit review). These can give developers the site planning flexibility needed in tight sites to build needed housing but also to retain mature trees and other people-oriented green infrastructure.
Know of another proposed project we should consider? Please contact us. Note we do not have the resources currently to address small projects that threaten just one (or a few) trees.
5. Community Education
WMTP is building awareness through articles and presentations about nature-integrated design which embeds nature throughout a development (see box below for details.) It goes much further than already-required preservation (or mitigation) of wetlands or critical lands in a development project.
Nature-integrated planning is practiced in many cities worldwide (and by many architects and landscape architects). It’s a proven way to provide potent green infrastructure within an otherwise hardscape-dominant (and thus heat and flood prone) urban environment.
What is Nature-Integrated Planning?
Prioritize the living.
Assess the biological, ecological — and now climate! — value inherent in a site so that smart choices can be made about what to preserve and enhance. If necessary, move/trade development to a different site rather than razing superb natural assets.
Be smart with footprints.
Carefully locate and shape building footprints to preserve major natural assets such as mature trees. Orient built spaces away from traffic, noise or other chaos. If needed, build higher (or smaller) to avoid creating a squeezed layout with only minimal landscape..
Build habitat value.
Provide nature corridors to adjacent ecologically sensitive areas. Establish diverse, multi-level native landscapes on-site that have ecological/habitat value. Avoid monoculture ground cover plus ornamental trees and bushes.
Explore tradeoffs.
Work with the local planning department to retain mature trees (and other major natural assets) beyond what’s normally required — in exchange for credits or variances to other requirements.
Volunteer Opportunities
• Want to help our efforts to protect trees in Bellingham? Even if you only a have a few hours available per month, please contact us if you have the time and interest!
Related Links/Resources
• Bellingham Urban Forest Plan
• Bellingham Landmark Tree Ordinance
• Bellingham Plan (Comprehensive Plan Update)
• WMTP’s Bellingham’s Tallest Trees map
• WMTP’s Bellingham Extreme Urban Heat Map
• WMTP Advocacy Reports & Presentations
Home > Projects > Tree Protection > Protecting Trees in Bellingham