MARSHALL — Questions about tree planting led to some discussion at Tuesday’s Marshall City Council meeting.

Under an amended city ordinance, home builders will not have to meet city tree planting requirements in order to get a permanent certificate of occupancy on a new house. Council members voted to approve the amendment, but only after they clarified what it might mean for Marshall residents.

The proposed update – one of a few different ordinance amendments brought before the council on Tuesday – affected Marshall city ordinances on landscaping. Proposed new language in the ordinance said a permanent certificate of occupancy for a residence will not be issued until landscaping ordinance requirements are met. However, residential lots would not have to meet city tree planting requirements before getting a permanent certificate of occupancy.

“The reason for that is, developers complain that when they build a spec house, it’s hard for them to figure out what the future owner would need,” said Marshall assistant planning and zoning administrator Ilya Gutman. Developers would prefer to let the new owners of a house plant trees where they want later on, he said.

Council member James Lozinski said the issues of getting a permanent certificate of occupancy for a new house, and planting trees on the lot, could have big impacts on both developers and homeowners.

“What’s happened is, if you issue a temporary occupancy, and you sell that house with a temporary, more than likely that person is not going to get their mortgage,” Lozinski said. “So now you’re caught between a rock and a hard spot, that your people are spending money to landscape properties, that get tore out after that house gets moved into.”

Marshall ordinances still do require a certain amount of trees to be planted on each residential lot, Gutman said. But under the proposed new language, a builder would not have to meet that requirement right away in order for a home to get a permanent certificate of occupancy. Tree planting would be the new homeowners’ responsibility instead.

Lozinski said he had thought the city would propose eliminating the tree planting requirement from ordinances altogether.

“We have a hard enough time getting houses built in any community, the way it is,” he said.

Council member Craig Schafer said the city could still enforce tree planting requirements on a property later on, if the owners do not add trees.

After the discussion, council members voted to approve the landscaping ordinance amendment, with the new language on tree planting and permanent occupancy certificates.