Landscaping shall be provided as part of the overall development plan design. This landscaping shall be integrated into building arrangement, topography, parking and buffering requirements. Landscaping shall include trees, bushes, shrubs, ground cover, perennials, annuals, plants, sculpture, art and the use of building and paving materials in an imaginative manner.
The applicant shall use natural topography and vegetation where possible. Large parking areas are not to be stripped of vegetation without requiring reseeding or replanting of all unpaved areas.
Every attempt shall be made by applicant to save existing trees even at the loss of parking spaces. Clumps of trees should be saved over single trees. Care should be taken by the reviewing board to properly evaluate site clearing proposals recognizing that wild trees often do not survive when their habitat is drastically altered. Where loss of trees is suggested, replacement should be required.
Slopes in excess of three to one shall be avoided unless necessitated by unusual site limitations. All slopes shall be stabilized in a manner acceptable to the reviewing board engineer.
Parking lots located in front of buildings shall be screened from adjacent roadways.
Tall, dense screen are required along nonpenetrable sidelines, rear property lines and where commercial or industrial parking areas abut residences or residential zones. Evergreens such as white pine, Austrian pine, Canadian hemlock, Serbian spruce, Arborvitae, and upright yews may be used, provided they meet specified height requirements. All screening and buffering shall be in accordance with Article 26, Buffers and Screening.
The areas adjacent to the driveways shall be planted in low plants or grass. Appropriate low plants include butterfly bush, Sargent juniper, inkberry, Japanese barberry or shrubby cinquefoil.
A. 
Where a development plan indicates raised walkways between opposing rows of cars, areas at the end of bays, or where proposed or required by the reviewing board specific planting islands are indicated, these areas shall be landscaped. Planting strips may be as narrow as five feet, with a fifteen-foot to twenty-foot width most desirable. All should be raised and protected by permanent concrete curbing.
B. 
The applicant shall landscape 5% to 10% of the parking area provided.
In proposing a landscaping plan an applicant shall take care, and the Board in reviewing shall require, that a natural setting consistent with prevailing community standards be preserved. Recognizing that a major community asset lies in the preservation of the natural condition of property, all efforts in the area of landscaping shall be exercised to provide consistent landscaping proposals with existing foliage.