Tag Archives: Urban Forestry

Hawthorne Street, Stewards of Street Trees

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Hawthorne Street, one of my blogging neighbors in Prospect Lefferts Gardens, the northeast reaches of greater Flatbush, posted some tips about how to watch over new street trees planted this Spring:

If you have a recently planted street tree in front of your house or building, maintenance is a key factor in ensuring that it continues to be healthy. The first year after planting is a critical time. Now that the danger of frost is dissipating, young trees need a lot of water. Watering should be done slowly, allowing the moisture to permeate the soil deeply. This allows the tree to develop a deep root system rather than depending on shallow roots.
– Caring for new street trees

They have additional info, and links to other online resources, so check ’em out!

Wanna Fight Crime? Plant Trees

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Do street trees increase or decrease crime? In an urban setting, does increased vegetation interfere with police surveillance of criminal activity? Or does the increase in community “surveillance” from more people spending more time outdoors, because it’s more pleasant, deter crime even more than police surveillance would?

According to Joseph Murray, biology instructor at Blue Ridge Community College in Weyers Cave, Virginia, it’s the latter:

Police tend to believe more vegetation means less visibility. A study in 2001 looked at subsidized housing units with varying amounts of vegetation around them. The most calls to the police came from the building with the least vegetation. Those with more vegetation tended to draw residents who demanded benches and well-maintained playground equipment. Then, people were out there watching.
– Urban Forestry Has Crime Prevention Role, Patricia R. McCoy, Alliance for Community Trees, January 22, 2008

We need to internalize more sophisticated models of the impact greening and gardening can have on urban communities. It’s much more than “neighborhood beautification”; at least, when it’s done well, it is. People need green growing things around them to be healthy, to reduce stress, to connect with neighbors, and to feel positively about belonging where they live. Gardening builds and supports community resiliency to respond creatively and constructively to internal and external crises and pressures. Gardening builds community. As it should.

Brooklyn Blogger Photo-Essay: Planting a Street Tree

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Google Alerts is so cool. I just added an alert for “Brooklyn” and “Tree”. And this popped up within about 20 minutes:

I had an amazing time planting the street tree. I never had the opportunity before, only knowing how to take care of windowsill gardens. It felt like I was part of something larger than myself. I really liked getting my hand dirty and working outside. I felt like I was bringing back the wolf by bringing back a tree.
– A tree grows in Brooklyn, art, life (no separation)

Angela’s post is illustrated by a sequence of photos showing the progress from empty pit to planted tree.

A Quality Housing requirement for the NYC Buildings Department is for the home owner to plant a street tree either in front of their new home or somewhere nearby (same block or neighborhood). That was my task this week. Along with my father, we planted our first street tree together. A Japanese Zelkovatree [Zelkova serrata], apparently impervious to the devastating longhorn beetle, was chosen in conjunction with the Parks Department.

Parks has a list of approved street tree species on their Web site. This is not a complete list of species that could be planted – “Superior cultivars may be substituted with the permission of the Agency” – but species susceptible to Asian-Longhorned Beetle (ALB, Anoplophora glabripennis) are specifically prohibited. These include Maples (Acer), Elms (Ulmus), Ashes (Fraxinus), and Hackberries (Celtis).

Related Posts

Asian-Longhorned Beetle
Urban Forestry

Links

Asian-Longhorned Beetle
Street Tree Species List
Trees & Greenstreets
NYC Department of Parks and Recreation

Factoid: Street Trees and Property Values

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The street tree in front of our house
Sycamore Maple? Street Tree, Stratford Road

Two weeks ago, I wrote that stormwater runoff reduction was the “second biggest” contributor to the annual benefits New York City receives from its street trees. So what’s the largest contributor? The annual increase in property values that accrues as trees grow:

Well-maintained trees increase the “curb appeal” of properties. Research comparing sales prices of residential properties with different numbers and sizes of trees suggests that people are willing to pay 3–7% more for properties with ample trees versus few or no trees. One of the most comprehensive studies on the influence of trees on residential property values was based on actual sales prices and found that each large front-yard tree was associated with about a 1% increase in sales price (Anderson and Cordell 1988). Depending on average home sale prices, the value of this benefit can contribute significantly to property tax revenues.
– NYC Municipal Forest Resource Analysis, Appendix D: Methodology, Property Value and Other Benefits [emphasis added]

The annual increase in property values attributable to NYC’s street trees alone is estimated at $52,500,000 per year. The standing value of those trees is far greater, 50-100 times the annual figure, in the billions of dollars. And this study only examined street trees. These figures do not take into account the standing and ever-increasing value of trees, plants, and other landscaping on the properties themselves.

Take that, Barbara Corcoran.

Many benefits attributed to urban trees are difficult to translate into economic terms. Wildlife habitat, beautification, improved human health, privacy, shade that increases human comfort, sense of place, and well-being are difficult to price. However, the value of some of these benefits may be captured in the property values of the land on which trees stand. To estimate the value of these “other” intangible benefits, research that compares differences in sales prices of houses was used to estimate the contribution associated with trees. The difference in sales price reflects the willingness of buyers to pay for the benefits and costs associated with trees.
– NYC Municipal Forest Resource Analysis, Chapter 4: Benefits of New York’s Municipal Trees

The calculation of annual aesthetic and other benefits is tied to a tree’s annual increase in leaf area. When a tree is actively growing, leaf area increases rapidly. At maturity, there may be no net increase in leaf area from year to year, thus there is little or no incremental annual aesthetic benefit for that year, although the cumulative benefit over the course of the entire life of the tree may be large. Since this report represents a 1-year snapshot of the street tree population, benefits reflect the increase in leaf area for each tree over the course of one year. As a result, a very young population of 100 callery pears
will have a greater annual aesthetic benefit than an equal number of mature planetrees. However, the cumulative aesthetic value of the planetrees would be much greater than that of the pear.

Related Posts

Barbara Corcoran Hates the Earth, November 18
Factoids: NYC’s Street Trees and Stormwater Reduction, November 15
Basic Research: The State of the Forest in New York City, November 12
Preserving Livable Streets: DCP’s Yards Text Amendment, November 7
How Much Is a Street Tree Really Worth?, April 9

Links

Million Trees NYC

Tree Pits are not Dumpsters

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Commercial Trash Dumped in Tree Pit on Cortelyou Road
Commercial Trash Dumped in Tree Pit on Cortelyou Road

I had a great community experience of planting Daffodils in the tree pits along Cortelyou Road the previous two weekends. So I was especially disheartened to find this afternoon that someone placed their trash in one of the tree pits.

You can see from the photo that it’s mostly recycling. There’s a bundle of cardboard on the right. The blue bags contain plastic and metal recyclables. The black bag contained mixed garbage, including papers identifying the business whose trash this was.

I don’t want to identify them right now. I want to give them a chance to respond. If I have time, I’ll try calling them tomorrow. I emailed them earlier this evening:

This afternoon I noticed that the tree pit in front of your building on Cortelyou Road had several bags and bundles of recycling and garbage in it. I looked for any items that could identify where it came from. I found several pieces of paper from your business.

You may not know that your neighbors spent the past two weekends working on the tree pits along Cortelyou Road from the subway station to Coney island Avenue. We removed all the accumulated garbage, weeded the pits, and planted Daffodil bulbs, which will bloom next April.

Please dispose of your commercial trash properly, at curb-side, and not in the tree pit.

I called 311 to register a complaint. They didn’t even have a category for this. They said they would add it to their system, and to call back in a few days. I can’t believe that noone has ever complained about this kind of thing before. If I have time, I’ll try calling Parks, who have responsibility and authority for tree pits, and ask them what to do the next time this happens.

I removed the trash from the pit after I took my photos.

Barbara Corcoran Hates the Earth

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Welcome, Apartment Therapy readers! If this story interests you, be sure to learn more by checking out the related posts linked at the end of this article.

Barbara Corcoran thinks the owner of this “townhouse” [sic] should chop down this maple tree, pave over the front yard, and park cars there instead to increase their property values.
1422 Beverly Road

Queens Crap has the goods on this (Daily News columnist advocates paving). I learned about it through Brooklyn Junction (Barbara Corcoran Weighs In On Proposed Yard Change), who was alerted to it by commenter “dbs” on his post about the Yards Text Amendment. I’ve read some excellent follow-up by my neighbor, Crazy Stable (Get a cement truck over there fast) and Forgotten New York (Cuckoo Corcoran).

Trees increase the selling prices of residential properties. Paving over the front yard will decrease the resale value of a home. It will also incur other annual costs to the homeowner, such as energy costs.

As a realtor (not just any realtor, “New York’s top realtor” the byline for her column asserts), Corcoran should know better. She should at least know better than to advise her readers out of ignorance. But then, it’s her Manhattan-myopic company that, even after years of doing business in Brooklyn and the other “outer” boroughs, has no category for “house” in their listings. And ascribes the name “Ditmas Park” to most of Victorian Flatbush. Not to mention she should know something about the Department of City Planning.

Barbara Corcoran thinks this is a townhouse.
1423 Albemarle Road
Oh, and as soon as possible they should chop down that pesky Cherry tree and pave over the front yard so they can park cars on it. She’s sure it will increase the property value.

Q. My wife and I have lived in Queens for the past 10 years and we plan on staying in the area for about another five. We are noticing lately that all of our neighbors are paving their yards and then use the space to park their cars on.

My wife has spent many hours cultivating her plants and would like to keep the garden, but I think having a driveway will help us increase the price of the house when it comes time to sell. What do you think?

A. Hey, a flower garden might look pretty and keep your wife happy, but the space in front of your house is worth a hell of a lot more as a driveway. [emphasis added]

You should know that the city council of Queens [sic, it’s the DCP proposal, the Yards Text Amendment] has just proposed a zoning change that would prohibit residents from paving their yards in some areas.

So get your wife on your side and get a cement truck over there fast.

– Ask Barbara, New York Daily News, November 8, 2007

What do you think? Leave a comment below. Even better, write Barbara herself.

[goo.gl]

Related Posts

Factoid: Street Trees and Property Values, December 2
The State of the Forest in New York City, November 12
Preserving Livable Streets: DCP’s Yards Text Amendment, November 6
Victorian Flatbush at risk from inappropriate zoning, October 23
Another reason to loathe real estate brokers, April 6
NASA Earth Observatory Maps NYC’s Heat Island, Block by Block, August 1, 2006

Links

Daily News columnist advocates paving, Queens Crap
Barbara Corcoran Weighs In On Proposed Yard Change, Brooklyn Junction
Yards Text Amendment, Brooklyn Junction
Get a cement truck over there fast, Crazy Stable
Cuckoo Corcoran, Forgotten New York

Footnotes

If you email Barbara Corcoran, you’ll get this robo-response:

Thanks for sending a question to “Ask Barbara”. Look for Barbara’s answer to your question in her “Ask Barbara” column appearing every Friday in Your Home only in the Daily News. Look for more real estate questions and Barbara’s helpful answers at www.nydailynews.com.

Would you like to speak to Barbara directly? Simply reply to this message with your full name, town and daytime phone number. You may be invited to ask your question on Barbara’s new show!

The title of this post comes from the Dilbert comic of June 19. Dogbert has been hired as a green-washing consultant for the company. He advises the pointy-haired boss, “Stop eating, breathing, driving, defecating, and procreating. Sit in the dark and decompose on some garden seeds. Or do you admit you hate the Earth?” The boss responds, “A little.” The cartoon was taken up by anti-environmental bloggers such as Moonbattery: “Thank you Dilbert, for attempting to rescue us from militant kooks who think the global warming hoax is real.”

This is not Barbara Corcoran
Jane Lynch as Christy Cummings in the movie 'Best in Show'

Welcome to the (Bloggy) Neighborhood

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Via Across the Park, one of my blogging neighbors, I just learned of a new blog on the block, Hawthorne Street:

Hello and welcome. Before creating any misconceptions, let me say up front that we’re going to be posting irregularly: anywhere from a couple of times a week to once every two months. Quality over quantity!
– Reading this blog

Even better, they’re tree huggers:

Since our block—and areas south and east of us—could use more trees, I passed info out to my neighbors on how to request a free tree in front of their houses. I made about 70 copies of the documents below and folded them into a flyer, which I placed in mailboxes of homes without trees on Fenimore, Hawthorne, Winthrop, and Parkside blocks from Flatbush to Nostrand Avenues.
– Getting more trees on your block

Sweet!

Note that, in addition to submitting the paper form, you can request a street tree online. You can request a free street tree, or you can plant your own. Tree planting season runs another month, until about December 15. After that, Spring will be the next opportunity for planting. For more information, see Request a Street Tree on the Parks Web site.

Factoids: NYC’s Street Trees and Stormwater Reduction

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I’ve been diving deep into the 72-page report on NYC’s street trees I wrote about a couple of days ago. The report was released in the Spring of this year to the public and addressed to Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe and Fiona Watt, Chief of Parks Forestry and Horticulture. The research documented in this report has informed many of the initiatives I’ve written about previously, including PlanNYC 2030, Parks’ Million Trees Initiative, DCP’s Yards Text Amendment, and so on.

The city spends $21,774,576 each year on its 584,036 living street trees (2005/2006 census), an average of $37.28 for each tree. The annual cost savings and other benefits to the city are $121,963,347, $208.83 per tree, for a Cost-Benefit ratio of $5.60 returned on every $1.00 invested. The second biggest contributor to this impressive %560 annual rate of return is stormwater runoff reductions.

  • Gallons of rainfall/stormwater intercepted each year by NYC’s street trees: 890,643,392
  • Annual cost savings to the city: $35,628,220 total, $61.00 per tree

Many older cities [including NYC] have combined sewer outflow [CSO] systems, and during large rain events excess runoff can mix with raw sewage. Rainfall interception by trees can reduce the magnitude of this problem during large storms. Trees are mini-reservoirs, controlling runoff at the source. [emphasis added] Healthy urban trees can reduce the amount of runoff and pollutant loading in receiving waters in three primary ways:

  • Leaves and branch surfaces intercept and store rainfall, thereby reducing runoff volumes and delaying the onset of peak flows.
  • Root growth and decomposition increase the capacity and rate of soil infiltration by rainfall and reduce overland flow.
  • Tree canopies reduce soil erosion and surface transport by diminishing the impact of raindrops on barren surfaces.

Much of this economic benefit of trees is determined by the total surface area of their leaves. Broad-leaved deciduous London Planetrees, of which there are many large specimens in NYC, account for %28.9 of the stormwater reduction provided by street trees.

Note that this report only address street trees, which comprise only about one-tenth of the 5.2 million trees in the city. However, street trees are adjacent to – and shelter – paved and other impervious surfaces which are the primary cause of surface runoff. Because of this, they provide much greater CSO reduction than trees on open ground such as parks and natural areas.

Related Posts

Preserving Livable Streets

Brooklyn’s Trees, a new Flickr photo group

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Welcome, Festival of the Trees visitors! Go see the photos in Brooklyn’s Trees. If you like what you see, come back here and read about it, and check out my other posts on Urban Foresty and Trees in general.

Brooklyn’s Trees is a Flickr photo pool I started to “share and celebrate Brooklyn’s trees through photography.” The response has been great, and the submissions are beautiful and diverse.



I’ve adapted a definition of “trees” from Festival of the Trees:

“Trees” are defined as any woody plant species that regularly exceed three meters in height; exceptions might include banana “trees” which are not woody plants. We are interested in trees in the concrete rather than in the abstract, so the “cloud trees” at the intersection of Ocean and Flatbush Avenues, for example, are out.

Any photographs of or about trees in Brooklyn are welcomed, including those on our streets, in our parks, gardens, and other public spaces, and on private property. Young trees, dead trees, shadows or reflections of trees are all in the spirit of this group. Photos should be “safe” as defined by Flickr.

Basic Research: The State of the Forest in New York City

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Updated 2007.11.13: Added direct links to all resolutions of the full report.

Thanks to a recent post on Save Ridgewood Reservoir, I learned of the existence of a comprehensive report on NYC’s street trees. This technical report was created by the Center for Urban Forest Research and addressed to Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe in April of this year. The report provides 72 pages of detailed, quantitative analysis of the state of NYC’s urban forest.

Relative age distribution of all NYC street trees by borough
Relative age distribution of all NYC street trees by borough

A find like this is a source of pleasure indescribable to someone who’s not already a tree-hugging geek such as myself. More important, it provides much-needed reference information for review and discussion of policy and planning, such as the Million Trees initiative, and DCP’s recent Yards Text Amendment proposal.

The city conducted a street tree census, Trees Count, in 2005-2006. The more accessible 12-page report [PDF] from that effort summarizes the numbers, types, sizes and conditions of street trees throughout NYC and by each borough. Here are some highlights for Brooklyn:

  • Number of trees: 142,747
  • Number of trees in 1995-1996 census: 112,400
  • %Change over 10 years: 27%
  • Most common street tree: London Plane, Platanus × hispanica (23.6%)
  • The top five most common trees account for 58% of the street trees.
  • Of Brooklyn Community Boards, CB14 tied with CB7 as having the highest percentage of tree canopy coverage.
  • Of Brooklyn Community Boards, CB14 had the third smallest increase of street trees, only 10%, followed by CB16 at 7% and CB17 at 5%
  • 38% of Brooklyn’s street trees have “infrastructure conflicts,” such as tree lights, choking wires and grates, and close paving.
  • The annual economic benefit of Brooklyn’s trees, considering property values, stormwater runoff, energy savings, air quality, and carbon sequestration, is $31,030,839.

Related posts

Center for Urban Forest Research
Preserving Livable Streets, November 7
Victorian Flatbush at risk from inappropriate zoning, October 23
Carolina Silverbell: One of a Million, October 9
State of Flatbush/Midwood, October 5
1M Trees in 10 Years, April 10
How Much is a Street Tree Worth, April 9
Landscape and Politics in Brooklyn’s City Council District 40, February 14
NASA Maps NYC’s Heat Island, August 1, 2006

Links

The full report – New York City, New York Municipal Forest Resource Analysis – is available as a PDF/Acrobat document from Parks and CUFR in different resolutions: smaller, lower resolution for online viewing, or larger, higher resolution to download for offline viewing or printing.

  • Read it now from CUFR (1.4MB) or Parks (2.4MB)
  • Save it for later from CUFR (13MB)

Trees Count (Parks)
Trees & Greenstreets (Parks)
Million Trees NYC
Yards Text Amendment (DCP)
Center for Urban Forest Research (CUFR)