HB 549 — Trees; conservation and replacement during development process in certain localities, report.
VA 20261 session
Conservation and replacement of trees during development process; work group; report. Expands certain existing local government authority to plant or replace trees during the development process by expanding such authority statewide. The bill allows localities to establish higher tree canopy replacement percentages based on density per acre. The bill also alters the current process for granting exceptions to a local ordinance by modifying a provision that requires the granting of an exception when the strict application of the ordinance would result in unnecessary or unreasonable hardship to the developer, and replacing it with a requirement that the locality concur with such a determination. The bill permits localities to monitor and assess the condition and coverage of tree canopies at development sites during a period of up to 20 years after the trees are planted. The bill also allows any town within Planning District 8 belonging to an eight-hour nonattainment area for air quality standards to require, by ordinance, that a subdivision or development provide for the preservation or replacement of trees on the development site such that the minimum tree canopy or cover 10 years after development is projected to meet specified coverage criteria. Under current law, the criteria apply to tree canopy coverage 20 years after development. Finally, the bill directs the Institute for Coastal Adaptation and Resilience to convene a work group to conduct a comprehensive review of the tree canopy laws and regulations and report the work group's findings and recommendations to the Chairs of the House Committee on Counties, Cities and Towns and Senate Committee on Local Government by November 1, 2026. This bill incorporates HB 995 and is identical to SB 589.
Latest action: — Acts of Assembly Chapter
Sponsors (9)
- Patrick A. Hope (D, VA) — sponsor
- Holly M. Seibold (D, VA) — cosponsor
- Rodney T. Willett (D, VA) — cosponsor
- Betsy B. Carr (D, VA) — cosponsor
- Nicole Cole (D, VA) — cosponsor
- Rae Cousins (D, VA) — cosponsor
- Phil M. Hernandez (D, VA) — cosponsor
- Karen Keys-Gamarra (D, VA) — cosponsor
- Destiny LeVere Bolling (D, VA) — cosponsor
Action timeline (60)
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- · senate · S4140 —
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- · house · H5432 —
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- · C6038 —
- · house · H6015 —
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- · C6038 —
- · senate · S6112 —
- · senate · S6111 —
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- · house · H6011 —
- · house · H6013 —
- · C6038 —
- · C6038 —
- · house · H6015 —
- · senate · S6015 —
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- · house · H5610 —
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- · house · H7010 —
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- · house · H5620 —
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Text versions (0)
No text versions on file yet — same ingest as the action timeline populates these. Each version has direct links to the XML / HTML / PDF at govinfo.gov.
Bill text (extracted)
Amendments
Congressional Research Service briefs (0)
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Who matters on this bill
Who matters
Members ranked by combined influence on this bill: role (sponsor 5 / cosponsor 1), capped speech count from the Congressional Record, and recorded-vote engagement.
| # | Member | Role | Speeches | Voted | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Patrick A. Hope (D, state_lower VA) | sponsor | 0 | — | 5 |
| 2 | Betsy B. Carr (D, state_lower VA) | cosponsor | 0 | — | 1 |
| 3 | Destiny LeVere Bolling (D, state_lower VA) | cosponsor | 0 | — | 1 |
| 4 | Holly M. Seibold (D, state_lower VA) | cosponsor | 0 | — | 1 |
| 5 | Karen Keys-Gamarra (D, state_lower VA) | cosponsor | 0 | — | 1 |
| 6 | Nicole Cole (D, state_lower VA) | cosponsor | 0 | — | 1 |
| 7 | Phil M. Hernandez (D, state_lower VA) | cosponsor | 0 | — | 1 |
| 8 | Rae Cousins (D, state_lower VA) | cosponsor | 0 | — | 1 |
| 9 | Rodney T. Willett (D, state_lower VA) | cosponsor | 0 | — | 1 |
Stance (positions taken)
Predicted vote
Aggregated from: actual roll-call votes (when present) → sponsor → cosponsor → party median (predicts YES when ≥25% of the caucus sponsored/cosponsored). Each row labels its confidence tier so you can see why a position was predicted.
0 predicted yes (0%) · 543 predicted no (100%) · 0 unknown (0%)
By party: · R: 0 yes / 277 no · D: 0 yes / 263 no · I: 0 yes / 3 no