Short title; legislative findings.

(a) This chapter shall apply only in a Class 2 municipality.

(b) It is hereby declared that the trees on private property and in publicly owned areas within a Class 2 municipality, including particularly those in street rights-of-way, are both an economic and an aesthetic asset to the Class 2 municipality and the State of Alabama; that the existing trees so located are in need of protection and of active measures to support their health and growth, that it is desirable that additional trees be planted, and that those ends require a separate entity specifically charged with the responsibility and duty of fostering the planting, growth, and protection of trees on private property and publicly owned areas.

(Act 2015-116, §§1, 2(1).)