TO: TARA SCHULTZ, CITY MANAGER
FROM: JEREMY SWAN, COMMUNITY SERVICES DIRECTOR
DATE: FEBRUARY 25, 2020
Reviewed by:
City Manager: TS
Finance Director: AP
SUBJECT:
Title
URBAN FOREST MANAGEMENT PLAN (FUNDING SOURCE: CALIFORNIA DEPARTMENT OF FORESTRY AND FIRE PREVENTION GRANT)
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SUMMARY
The Urban Forest Management Plan provides a vision, goals, and objectives for the community’s urban forest. In June 2017, the City of Claremont was awarded a $100,000 grant by the California Department of Forestry and Fire Prevention to prepare an Urban Forest Management Plan (UFMP). Because of the extensive amount of work required to prepare an UFMP, the City hired a consultant for its development and completion. Preparation of the City’s UFMP included community involvement and took approximately two years to complete.
A 90 percent draft was considered at the regularly scheduled Sustainability Committee and Tree Committee meetings in November 2019. Comments received were incorporated into the draft plan. The 95 percent draft was considered at a special December Community and Human Services Commission meeting. Comments received were incorporated into the final draft, which is attached to this report for final consideration by the City Council (Attachment A).
RECOMMENDATION
Recommended Action
Staff recommends that the City Council approve the Urban Forest Management Plan.
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ALTERNATIVE TO RECOMMENDATION
In addition to the recommendation, there is the following alternative:
• Request additional information from staff.
FINANCIAL REVIEW
In 2017, the City was granted $100,000 by the California Department of Forestry and Fire Prevention for the development of an Urban Forest Management Plan. The City contracted with Plan-It Geo, LLC to develop the plan on behalf of the City for an amount not to exceed $80,000. The remaining $20,000 awarded by California Department of Forestry and Fire Prevention was moved to the Education and Outreach line item for assistance in advertising and outreach during the UFMP community outreach period. Sustainable Claremont was awarded this funding for outreach assistance.
The staff cost to prepare this report and administer this project is estimated at $5,700 and is included in the operating budget of the Community Services Department.
ANALYSIS
The push for an Urban Forest Management Plan came out of the 2015 update to the Tree Policies and Guidelines Manual. Throughout this update process, several community members and Sustainable Claremont advocated for a long-term plan for the City’s urban forest. In December 2017, the City entered into an agreement with Plan-It Geo, LLC to develop an UFMP. This Plan is designed to be a flexible, working document spanning the next forty years. It will be continually implemented and monitored over that period and will evolve as needed.
City trees suffer from the rigors of urban life, such as diminished air quality, drought, compacted soil, limited growing space, and are under the threat of diseases, pests, and global climate change. The UFMP identifies issues facing Claremont’s urban forest and lays out a long-term vision and plan to ensure a sustainable urban forest within the City of Claremont for the next forty years. The Plan presents goals, objectives, and both action and monitoring plans to ensure effective execution.
Development Process
The process for developing the UFMP was a systematic process whereby the results of each step informed the next, leading to the development of the goals and objectives. The City’s urban forest program was carefully evaluated, and information was collected through community, staff, and department interviews, as well as public surveys. This information was augmented with an in-depth review of City policies related to urban forestry efforts.
Community input was a large component to developing the UFMP. Sustainable Claremont was retained to host a total of six community meetings, held between Spring 2018 and Summer 2019. These meetings focused on topics including urban forest program overview, budget, and issues and concerns related to the urban forest. At each meeting, attendees were given the opportunity to discuss their concerns or support openly, or to ask general questions regarding urban forestry. Community meetings were advertised on social media, the City website, through Sustainable Claremont, and in local newspapers.
Another means of collecting public input was the use of a seven-question survey publicly distributed at community meetings, via email, on the City’s website, and at tree planting events. The survey allowed the City to collect valuable information regarding the community’s perception of and priorities for the urban forest. Approximately fifty surveys were collected and analyzed.
While the community input process was occurring, the consultant analyzed the current tree inventory and canopy coverage. Results from these analyses were used to form goals and objectives for the UFMP. Based on the City’s current urban forest status, goals and objectives were developed to advance the City’s existing urban forest management program.
Status of the Urban Forest
Canopy Coverage
Canopy coverage is defined as the layer of leaves, branches, and stems of trees that cover the ground when viewed from above. Determining the extent of the City’s canopy will help plan for the preservation and future of the urban forest. The 2012 urban tree canopy assessment data has been completed and analyzed. The City is awaiting the 2018 CalFire land cover data to conduct the 2018 assessment, and the two will be compared to demonstrate a canopy change analysis. Additionally, the updated analysis will identify future plantable space and opportunities for tree canopy growth.
Value and Benefits of the Urban Forest
In order to manage an urban forest effectively, the City must understand the current tree inventory and the current condition of the urban forest. The City conducted a tree inventory update in 2018. As part of the inventory update, tree valuation was calculated for each tree surveyed, for a total value of approximately $88 million for the 26,164 trees surveyed. Tree value is based on size, location, and species rating. The City’s top three valuable genera are the Coast live oak (Quercus agrifolia), Canary Island pine (Pinus canariensis), and California sycamore (Platanus racemosa). These three species are valued at $24,313,750, approximately thirty percent of the total value of the urban forest, yet they make up less than twenty percent of the trees in the urban forest.
The diversity of trees in the urban forest greatly affects the amount of benefits produced, tree maintenance activities, and budgets. Based on the 2018 inventory, there are 139 unique genera in Claremont’s urban forest. The top five include oaks, crape myrtles, eucalypti, pines, and sweetgums.
Size and age distribution are also important attributes to know when managing an urban forest. The distribution of tree age influences the structure of the urban forest and necessary resources. The optimal diversity of size and age is to have a high percentage of large trees, with enough smaller trees to balance out the loss of large trees over time. Currently, the younger tree population in the City accounts for forty percent of the urban forest, while large trees account for twenty percent.
Current Staffing and Maintenance Activities
The City of Claremont’s Community Services Department is responsible for managing and coordinating the work efforts toward care, preservation, and maintenance of the urban forest. Private contractors perform most of the tree maintenance, including trimming, removal, replacement, and treatment of trees throughout the City.
To maintain a healthy and safe urban forest, adequate staffing levels within the Urban Forest Program are necessary. Claremont’s Urban Forest Program staffing consists of administrative staff that provide support to the Community and Human Services Commission and customer service to residents, as well as maintenance staff including a Landscape Maintenance Supervisor/staff Arborist and field maintenance workers. It should be noted that the Landscape Maintenance Supervisor and field staff are not dedicated to the Urban Forest Program. To supplement Claremont’s urban forest program, consulting arborists shall be used. City staff can address some urgent conditions, minor trimming or raising, and small tree removals. Larger emergency issues, tree removals, or tree trimming are assigned to the contractor to complete.
Claremont contracts for the routine care and maintenance of City-owned trees. Other than an eight-year grid trimming cycle and annual tree planting, most urban forest maintenance activities are performed reactively. Any trimming requested outside this eight-year cycle is considered on a case-by-case basis and must be authorized by City staff. Trees recommended for removal by City staff are assigned to the contractor. Any vacant sites, as identified when trees are removed or in the inventory update, are assessed for replant viability and added to a future planting list.
Challenges of the Urban Forest
Invasive Pests and Diseases
Invasive species are pests that are not native to areas in which they cause problems. They invade and establish populations in new areas and the result in uncontrolled population growth and the spread causes economic or environmental loss. Claremont deals with pest threats on a case-by-case basis and uses Integrated Pest Management (IPM) techniques to solve pest problems while minimizing risks to people and the environment. IPM is an ecological approach to pest management that focuses on prevention and suppression of undesirable pests through a combination of techniques. The City currently has two identified threats to the urban forest, the Invasive Shot Hole Borer and Xylella.
The Invasive Shot Hole Borer (ISHB), Euwallacea sp. (formerly known as Polyphagous Shot Hole Borer), is an invasive beetle that attacks dozens of common native and landscape trees. The beetle tunnels into host trees and spreads Fusarium Dieback (FD), a disease known to infect over 110 tree species. FD is caused by Fusarium euwallaceae, a fungus that disrupts the transport of water and nutrients in the tree, leading to branch dieback and overall decline. For Claremont, the tree species at most risk are the more than 1,500 California sycamores (6 percent of the total urban forest), 1,900 Coast live oaks (7 percent), 400 London Plane trees (2 percent), and the 150+ historic American Elms (<1 percent) in the City. Currently, there are 8,184 at risk trees and 84 unique ISHB host species in the City. This equates to over $40 million in benefits provided by these trees. An ISHB monitoring program is in progress, where certain host species are monitored for activity and treated as necessary.
The glassy-winged sharpshooter (Homalodisca vitripennis) or GWSS, is a large leafhopper insect that feeds on plant fluids. The main concern as it relates to landscape trees is that it can transmit the plant-pathogenic bacterium Xylella fastidiosa (“xylella”) from one plant to another. The bacterium causes bacterial leaf scorch in a wide range of shade trees such as sycamores, elms, maples, olives, and oaks, and colonizes the tree’s water-conducting tissue where it disrupts water movement, causing reduced water availability to the tree. Once the GWSS acquires the bacterium, adults are infected immediately and remain so for the remainder of their life. The City does not treat for Xylella because there is no known effective treatment. In response, the City removes trees either exhibiting signs of significant dieback due to Xylella and/or considered hazardous.
Water
Responsible watering of City trees is essential to the health and vitality of the urban forest. The Claremont Municipal Code tasks residents with the responsibility of adequately watering City trees. Newly planted trees, including drought-tolerant species, are dependent upon supplemental irrigation until the tree is established, typically two years. Although mature trees do not require the same amount of water as newly planted trees, it is still important to provide adequate amounts of water to mature trees. Periods of extreme heat, wind, or drought may require more water than during non-drought conditions. Tree loss due to lack of watering is a costly problem not only in removal costs, but also in the loss of benefits trees provide to the community.
Climate Change
A well-functioning urban forest can help mitigate the effects of climate change in many ways. The physical shade and transpiration of water from trees in an urban environment can reduce the overall temperature or heat-island effect by upwards of 10˚F. Reduced temperatures in turn lead to lower energy consumption, which reduces greenhouse gases.
Actively growing trees also sequester and store atmospheric carbon (a leading contributor to climate change) in their wood, while at the same time releasing oxygen back into the atmosphere. In addition to capturing carbon, trees are also effective at absorbing other common air pollutants, including nitrogen oxides, ammonia, sulfur dioxide, and ozone. The City acknowledges the changing climate and is proactively planting climate-adapted tree species that require less watering.
Goals and Objectives
Through the community input process, goals and objectives were developed in three distinctive areas. Goals and objectives identified in the Urban Forest Management Plan are intended for action in the first five years following the approval of the Plan. These goals and objectives include:
1. Increase the City’s urban tree canopy cover and maximize the benefits of trees.
2. Maximize the efficiencies in maintaining the benefits of trees.
3. Minimize the risk of trees in the urban environment.
The UFMP includes a list of objectives under each goal area, a year for completion, and the lead and/or support agency or individual for each objective.
Urban Forest Management Plan Recommendations
The Urban Forest Program portion of the UFMP provides recommendations and/or areas for improvement. Each section of the Urban Forest Program discusses challenges and provides recommendations that can be implemented as funding is available. No additional funding is being requested as part of this plan.
Approval of the Urban Forest Management Plan is important even though no additional funding is requested at this time. The Urban Forest Management Plan provides guidance for the next forty years. Action items in the plan are to be accomplished within the first five-years of the plan. Several of these items can be addressed within the current budget or with grant funding. Additionally, having an approved Urban Forest Management Plan is helpful when applying for future grant funds. It demonstrates that the City has a long-term plan for its urban forest with established actions items and priorities.
RELATIONSHIP TO CITY PLANNING DOCUMENTS
Staff has evaluated the agenda item in relationship to the City’s strategic and visioning documents and finds the following:
Council Priorities - This item addresses the Council Priority of preserving our natural, cultural, and historic resources.
Sustainability Plan - This item complies with the goals of Sustainability Plan Goal 5.4 to protect, improve, and expand the urban forest.
Economic Sustainability Plan - This item relates to the Statements of City Council Basic Values on Economic Stability as outlined in the Economic Sustainability Plan.
General Plan - This item addresses Measure I-24 and III-31 relating to the City’s Urban Forest Management Program of the General Plan and furthers the goal of maintaining the urban forest.
2019-20 Budget - This item meets the Community Services Department Work Plan Goal CS-12: Preserve and maintain a healthy urban forest that will improve the environment and provide overall beauty to the community.
Youth and Family Master Plan - This item does not relate to the objectives in the Youth and Family Master Plan.
CEQA REVIEW
This item does not involve the “approval” of a project within the meaning of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), in that it merely calls for completion of a planning study and does not “commit the City to a definite course of action in regard to a project intended to be carried out by any person” within the meaning of Section 15352 of the State CEQA Guidelines. In addition, even if contracting for the CalFire Urban Forest Management Plan constituted “approval” of a project within the meaning of CEQA, the project would be categorically exempt from CEQA pursuant to CEQA Guidelines section 15301. This Class 1 exemption allows for the maintenance of topographical features with negligible or no expansion.
Additionally, none of the exceptions to the categorical exemptions set forth in State CEQA Guideline section 15300.2 applies to the proposed project because the proposed project: (1) is not located in a uniquely sensitive environment; (2) is not located within a highway officially designated as a state scenic highway; (3) is not located on a hazardous waste site; (4) would not have a cumulative impact; and (5) would not have a significant substantial adverse change in the significance of a historical resource. Therefore, no CEQA review is required.
COMMITTEE AND COMMISSION REVIEW
The Sustainability Committee received and filed the Draft Urban Forest Management Plan report at its November 18, 2019 meeting. An excerpt from the November 18, 2019 Sustainability Committee meeting minutes is attached (Attachment B).
On November 20, 2019, the Tree Committee unanimously recommended that the Community and Human Services Commission approve the Draft Urban Forest Management Plan and directed staff to finalize the Urban Forest Management Plan for City Council’s approval. An excerpt from the November 20, 2019 Tree Committee meeting minutes is attached (Attachment C).
On December 18, 2019, the Community and Human Services Commission unanimously directed staff to finalize the draft Urban Forest Management Plan for City Council approval. The approved minutes from the December 18, 2019 Community and Human Services Commission special meeting is attached (Attachment D). The Community and Human Services Commission had several questions and comments regarding the UFMP. These questions were either addressed verbally as reflected in the minutes or are more appropriately addressed in the Tree Policies and Guidelines Manual as they relate to daily operations of the Urban Forest Program. Community Services staff is currently working on an update of the Tree Policies and Guidelines Manual that will address the Commission’s concerns and comments. The update will be brought to the Commission in Fall 2020.
PUBLIC NOTICE PROCESS
This item has been noticed through the regular agenda notification process. Copies are available at the City Hall public counter, the Youth Activity Center, the Alexander Hughes Community Center, and on the City website.
Submitted by: Prepared by:
Jeremy Swan Cari Dillman
Community Services Director Community Services Manager
Attachments:
A - Draft Urban Forest Management Plan
B - Excerpt from the 11/18/19 Sustainability Committee Meeting Minutes
C - Excerpt from the 11/20/19 Tree Committee Meeting Minutes
D - 12/18/19 Community and Human Services Commission Meeting Minutes