What does it cost to replace a tree in the City of Atlanta? Presently, the Tree Protection Ordinance assesses an Established Recompense Value of $100 per tree plus $30 per inch diameter at breast height (DBH). This amount assumes that it costs about $175 to plant a 2.5 caliper tree, which is the minimum size tree the Tree Ordinace requires to be replanted, but can be paid as recompense to the Tree Trust Fund instead. But $175 is not even close to what it costs to plant a tree today since that calculation was derived two decades ago (and was too low even then).
According to the City of Atlanta's on their own tree planting contracts, it has been costing the City, on average, $656 to plant a 2.5 caliper inch tree. Based on $656/2.5 inch diameter tree, the Established Recompense Value (ERV) should be $262 per inch, not $100 plus $30 per inch. However at that time this calculation was done in early 2021, the City wanted to shave off a few dollars off the average cost for unexplained reasons (other than to acknowledge that this amount was higher than the current recompense fee), and propose that the new ERV be only $240 per inch.
However, it's been over two years since that fee study was conducted, and given the inflation and labor shortages that have occured since, the cost to replace a tree is likely even higher today that the mean $262 per inch the City was paying prior to 2021.
