General Trees - Laserfiche WebLink

New Search

4. HAMMITT Bob From: MEDLIN Johnny R To: BELLMORE Mike; FOERSTLER Kevin J; KEABLE Garry A; MCVEY Fred; LONG Jack E; SIDWELL Larry D; CAIRO Ma'Carry; PLAMONDON Scott F Cc: SHUTT Gene; GIBSON John C; HAMMITT Bob; DELESS Russ Subject: Conflicts with Underground Facilities and Trees within the parking strip Date: Tuesday, April 01, 1997 8:31 AM Hi Folks, A couple of questions came up last week which made me feel that there was a need to share what believe to be our current policy regarding conflicts between street trees and utilities. To put this all in perspective you much first accept that street trees are to be considered a CITY ASSET of equal importance with any of the others assets we maintain (sidewalks, streets, sewers, etc.) Over the past number of years both the Public and the Council has repeatedly made it very clear that street trees are an important asset to the community and neighborhoods in contributing to their "livability ". think one of the strongest indicators of this is where the new adopted local street plan pretty much gives full priority to space within the planting strip to the trees and requires the utilities to be placed in easements behind the right -of -way or, if that is physically impractical, under the sidewalk. Also in the local street plan, the developer of new subdivisions are now REQUIRED to provide street trees. Another indication just a couple months ago was the Budget Committee's willingness to cut funds from the Road Overlay program in order to save the street tree planting program. Or in other words, folks, the people of this city loves their trees. PLANTING OF NEW TREES: IN THE NEIGHBORWOODS VOLUNTEER STREET TREE PLANTING PROGRAM: We should try to avoid wherever possible placing a tree over the top of an existing utility. What this means is that if there is room to move the tree to one side or the other than that should be done. In the case where the topography is such where the tree can't be moved, the abutting property owner should be notified that the proposed tree is over a utility line and may make their future maintenance of that line more difficult. If the property owner still wants the tree planted, then so be it, and let them plant the tree. IN CITY PLANTING: We should not internally be planting trees over utility lines unless their is some unique and strong reason to do so. Such plantings should proceed only on a case by case basis and after discussion. EXISTING TREES A second topic which has seen some recent discussion is conflicts between existing underground utilities and existing trees. Again, this discussion must be taken in the context that we are dealing with public assets important in the eyes of the neighborhood. The new code language requiring a permit for the removal of a street tree and the calculation of an appraised value for the tree was put into place for a single purpose. That purpose was to provide a mechanism which would FORCE people who were developing their property to take into design consideration the value or importance of the existing street tree when they made their decisions on where to locate facilities such as driveways or utilities. Prior to this new language the criteria for allowing the removal of a street tree was vague and the department was often criticized both for allowing and in other cases not allowing removals. Now the removal criteria is fairly simple. Unless the tree is of heritage status, any street tree can be removed if the party wanting the removal is willing to reimburse the city for the appraised value of that tree. Depending on the size and subsequent value of the tree a property owner may decide it is less expensive to design /redesign their improvements to miss the tree. Page 1