Picture this: You’re walking through your neighborhood on a sweltering summer afternoon, and you duck under the sprawling canopy of a massive oak tree. Instantly, the temperature drops by 10 degrees. You take a deep breath of clean air, filtered by thousands of leaves overhead. That tree? It’s been there for decades – maybe even a century.
These are our Heritage Trees – DC’s oldest and largest trees – legally protected because of the irreplaceable benefits they provide to our community, our health, and our environment.
Well, at least, they’re supposed to be protected. But increasingly, developers have found ways around our tree laws, using the DC Council to obtain special permission to remove towering trees that stand in the way of their profits.
As you may have already seen, we recently launched a petition urging the DC Council to rescind the waiver given to the developers of the RFK campus. At least 30 historic Heritage Trees are at risk of being removed in addition to dozens of Special Trees.
However, this isn’t the first time developers have successfully undermined the law.
A Broken Promise in Ward 7
On July 14, 2025, the DC Council rushed through “emergency” legislation approving the removal of five healthy willow oak Heritage Trees at the Parkside Development in Ward 7. The removal permit gives the developer 90 days to remove these trees.
Three years prior, in 2022, the same developer lobbied for an exemption and was denied.
At the time, then Ward 3 Councilmember Mary Cheh, head of the committee on transportation and the environment, said: “I was not inclined to consider an exemption – I know the exemption business: Once you have one, then you have two.”
Cheh’s prediction proved true. The Parkside developers got their exemption in July, and now we’re facing another one at RFK – exactly the slippery slope Cheh was concerned about.
This comes three years after a resolution was agreed upon.
After the exemption was originally denied in 2022, the zoning commission approved the development plans, which included relocating the trees as a benefit to the community. Instead of keeping that promise, the developers lobbied the Council again for permission to cut them down entirely.
Now, the Parkside community will lose these irreplaceable assets, while the developer saves money and deprives their future residents of the cooling shade and health benefits of those historic trees.
It’s just one example of a developer walking back on their promises to the community, and we can’t let it happen again.
Why This Matters
Like many other communities, DC is facing unprecedented climate challenges – and trees are a key part of the solution. Flash flooding overwhelms our storm drains and pollutes our rivers. Extreme heat is posing a significant threat to our most vulnerable residents. Severe droughts stress our urban forest and wildlife.
Protecting our Heritage and Special Trees is critical to cooling our city, cleaning our water and air, and reducing stormwater runoff.
By law, removing a Heritage Tree comes with significant fines – at least $30,000 or $300 per inch of circumference – reflecting how long it takes for new trees to grow to the same size. But these penalties become meaningless when the Council routinely grants exemptions for developers who can afford to lobby for special treatment.
How to Help
For DC’s tree laws to work, they need to be enforced equally and consistently. We cannot continue to give developers a pass when it comes to cutting down our city’s largest and oldest trees – the very trees that provide the strongest environmental and health benefits.
That’s why over 3,000 advocates have already signed our petition calling on the DC Council to protect the trees at RFK.
But we need your voice, too.
Join the petition here and help us send a clear message to the DC Council and Mayor: DC’s trees aren’t disposable, and neither are the laws meant to protect them.
Together, we can make sure DC continues to live up to its nickname, “the City of Trees.”
