1,500+ trees cut, ~$500K fee assessed
Canton calculated that more than 1,500 trees had been removed and assessed a remediation fee of around half a million dollars.
Where this was said
Canton, Michigan: How a Tree Ordinance Was Born
At 9:31 · chapter starts 8:41
Canton Township, Michigan, with over 100,000 residents, sits 40 minutes west of Detroit and looks like every other tidy American suburb — until you notice the town flag has a big green tree on it. As the township grew, developers replaced forests with strip malls and subdivisions, and the town's leaders grew alarmed. In 2006, the township board passed an ordinance requiring permits for removing large trees. Supervisor Ann Marie Graham Hudak frames it as a public-health and environmental measure: trees filter air, absorb stormwater, prevent floods, and keep neighborhoods cool on hot days. 'You don't live isolated in a bubble,' she says. The ordinance mostly targeted developers, who had to pay a remediation fee — usually a couple hundred dollars per tree — into a township tree fund, or plant replacement trees. For years, the system worked smoothly, with thousands of trees permitted and replanted.
16 acres clear-cut without permits
Canton, Michigan property owners secretly clear-cut about 16 acres of woods with no permits or notice in spring 2018.
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