Chapel Hill Town Council members deferred a discussion on a proposed tree protection ordinance amendment at their Monday night meeting.
Council members said while the changes to the ordinance were good ones, many of the requirements and definitions in the proposal weren’t clear.
Council member Matt Czajkowski said the complexity of the ordinance could pose problems regarding the future.
“We need to find out where we were and where we are,” he said.
Council members will pick the discussion back up at their Dec. 6 meeting, recommending the planning board clarify the wording of the proposed changes.
“We had a very long public participation process in developing the ordinance,” Mary Jane Nirdlinger, assistant planning director for Chapel Hill, said. “We heard that people wanted to have regulation that was progressive and responsive but did not over regulate for extreme situations.”
Among other changes, the ordinance amendments would have increased imposed canopy protection requirements on properties where more than 5,000 square feet of disturbance is proposed.
Smaller, residential properties would not have been affected by the changes.
Chapel Hill resident Phil Post said he was opposed to dismissing the current ordinance because the changes were impractical.
