Tree Canopy Loss in Apex is Among the Highest in Wake County. Now the Town is Considering New Protections.

Apex residents said goodbye to local landmark “Oakey” last week, a 140-year-old oak tree off of Hunter Street. The town was forced to fell the aged tree because of its condition: it was no longer “structurally sustainable,” according to Mayor Jacques Gilbert. In other words the tree, which stood only a few feet from the sidewalk, with branches arching over a road in the heart of downtown, was at risk of falling.

It’s clear the tree was important to Apex residents. Gilbert’s social media post on April 30 drew more than 400 likes and 50 comments. Later that same day, coincidentally, the town’s Environmental Advisory Board (EAB) encouraged council members to enact stricter tree protections, similar to those in Durham or Charlotte. 

While Oakey was forced to come down because of age and related safety concerns, other trees across Western Wake are being felled prematurely as the area continues to develop rapidly. At a town council workshop on April 30, staff presented a suite of 10 recommendations for amendments to the town’s Unified Development Ordinance (UDO), or land use rules, which would help preserve and expand the town’s tree canopy.

The town’s current UDO includes several protections for existing trees, especially in conservation and buffer areas. The proposed amendments would strengthen some of those requirements and apply them to developments across town.

Recommendations include designating and protecting champion and heritage trees, expanding protections for critical root zones, and requiring a “resource management plan” for development projects over two acres, “to ensure existing trees are accurately identified and protected early in the design process,” the presentation stated. 

“The goal of this is to design the project around the existing environmental conditions to preserve as much of it as possible,” planner Bruce Venable said during the workshop. 

The EAB also proposed creating a dedicated tree mitigation fund based on Charlotte’s program, which collects money to preserve the existing tree canopy and plant new trees. Charlotte’s tree ordinance allows developers to contribute money to the fund in lieu of preserving trees for certain development projects. 

The EAB also pitched an incentive program for developers that would allow them to build with more density or reduce setbacks for projects that preserve 25% of the existing tree canopy or more. The current zoning code has a very limited incentive that allows developers to reduce parking space to preserve existing trees.

Finally, staff recommended hiring a full-time urban forester to oversee tree protection and planting efforts. Cary, Charlotte, Durham, Morrisville, Raleigh, and Wake Forest each already have dedicated urban forestry staff, according to the presentation.

Apex town council members were enthusiastic about the recommendations, coming up with additional ideas for tree protection. Council member Terry Mahaffey said staff should be “very” aggressive when it comes to developing new policies to protect the town’s trees. 

Currently, the town council can only ask and incentivize developers to preserve tree canopy beyond what is required in the UDO. Council members suggested looking at the feasibility of implementing more widespread requirements for developers to preserve tree canopy and charging fees to get out of those requirements like Charlotte does. 

“Basically, I think these are all great ideas, especially some of these long-standing EAB recommendations that we routinely implement for rezonings,” council member Arno Zegerman said.

“To incorporate those as UDO practices makes a lot of sense,” he added, citing a proposal to require more species diversity in landscaping for new developments. Council members also favored planting more trees in the town center, where more pavement and buildings create urban heat islands. 

Western Wake County saw some of the county’s biggest losses in tree canopy from 2010 to 2020, according to a countywide assessment conducted in 2023. Morrisville saw a roughly 22% decrease in total tree canopy during that time, compared to a countywide average of 3%. Other Western Wake towns also sustained significant losses, including Apex (-15%), Holly Springs (-10%), and Cary (-7%). 

Losses greater than 10% were also seen in Raleigh and “areas of recent growth and development to the northeast and southeast of the city,” the report stated (including Wake Forest). 

These losses are especially consequential  as local towns and cities see worsening impacts from climate change. Trees capture stormwater and reduce runoff, which is crucial as extreme rainfall is expected to become more frequent and intense across North Carolina, according to the 2020 NC Climate Science Report. 

“The past decade have been the hottest years on record, and that trend is only continuing,” Apex’s environmental programs coordinator, Nora Skinner, said during last week’s workshop, citing the report. “The urban heat island effect is going to be magnified because of these rising temperatures and because of our expanding growth.” 

While Wake County’s tree canopy assessment was based on a “snapshot of conditions” in 2010 and 2020, growth and development haven’t slowed in recent years. Wake County, Raleigh, and Cary are consistently rated as some of the fastest-growing areas in the nation, according to the U.S. Census Bureau data. In the last 10 years, more than 200,000 new residents moved into Wake County, according to Wake County’s interactive data dashboard. 

Across the county, trees are being cut down as developers build new apartment towers, suburban neighborhoods, and shopping centers. The amount of new construction has risen in parallel with population growth. From 2019 to 2024, the number of residential building permits issued in Wake County jumped from around 9,700 to more than 15,000.

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