CITY'S STREET TREE POLICY

Motion - Trees are the lungs of the City and we have a huge and growing urban forest which needs constant maintenance. The growth of our urban forest also brings with it numerous challenges which raise a need to revisit and possibly revise the City's street tree policy, particularly as it relates to ficus trees, and to address the need to improve the funding for the Bureau of Street Services street tree trimming cycle. There are various new issues that need to be addressed, including the following: 1. Deferred maintenance. The City is currently funding the Urban Forestry Division of the Bureau of Street Services to trim trees on a 9 year trim cycle for the second year in a row. Before this the trim cycles were 10 years in FY 04-05 and 12 years in FY 03-04. However, the ideal maintenance cycle is between 3-7 years. 2. Increase in Police Department requests for service in an effort to fight crime. There has been a marked increase in recent years in the number of requests made by the Police Department to prune trees in high crime areas and areas where surveillance cameras have been installed, to the point where City staff can no longer keep up with the level of demands. In addition, funding that the Bureau of Street Services used to receive from the Bureau of Street Lighting to prune trees around street lights will soon be depleted. As a result as many as 20,000 trees that would have been trimmed in high crime areas and/or in street lighting districts will not be funded, exacerbating an already difficult situation. 3. Maintenance of trees on Municipal building sites. In the past, the Department of Recreation and Parks was responsible for maintaining the trees adjacent to municipal facilities such as libraries, police/fire stations, municipal office buildings. However that responsibility is currently in suspense and there is now no one City agency responsible for the inspection care and monitoring of trees at these facilities. 4. Addressing the long term maintenance needs of the trees that will be planted as part of the Million Tree Initiative. The above listed issues, as well as the most pressing issue of overgrown ficus trees, need to be addressed in a comprehensive manner which would include a revisiting of the City's Street Tree Policy. THEREFORE MOVE that the Department of Public Works be directed to report on a revision of the City's Street Tree Policy in order have that policy more closely conform to the City's changing street tree needs and challenges, as further described in text of this motion.