Nashiville Seeks Plans Before Building Permits Approved

In Nashville county, developers do not have to submit their landscape plans until after receiving their building permits, a process that three members of the Metro Council want to change. They have submitted a bill to the council to ensure that developers of commercial and multifamily properties complete the landscape plans they submit when getting approval for their projects.

The bill would require underground irrigation of code-required landscaping and prohibit ?EUR??,,????'??tree topping,?EUR??,,????'?? i.e., severely cutting back of limbs and removing the normal canopy. The bill also requires that no more than half of the trees planted on new commercial or multifamily residential property be of the same species, and seeks to widen, from five to eight feet, the landscaping strips placed between parking lots and public streets. One councilwoman told the Nashville City Paper that she worked with the developer, contractor and landscape architect of a new strip mall to develop a landscape plan but that when driving by the site?EUR??,,????'??+before the building permit was issued?EUR??,,????'??+saw bulldozers felling perfectly good trees.