| Local Policy Description: | Tree Planting Stategies
Austin’s Parks and Recreation Department (PARD) is currently pursuing an aggressive and highly cost effective tree-planting campaign. In 1989, the City Council set a goal to plant 300,000 trees on public property (street-side, medians, parks, etc.) by the year 2000. In order to meet this goal, 30,000 trees per year would have had to be planted from 1990 to 2000; however, this level of effort was not funded, and far fewer trees have been planted. In order to increase tree planting without extra funding from the city, PARD created the innovative NeighborWoods project, which targets neighborhoods needing trees to mitigate the urban heat-island effect. When streets are shaded, they absorb less heat in the summer, resulting in lower temperatures in the outside area as well as cooler homes for residents with no air conditioning, and lower cooling bills for residents with air conditioners. Currently, PARD is planting 3,000 to 4,000 street trees each year through the NeighborWoods project, at an average cost of less than $25 per tree. There is also a tree program for city-owned parks, which is limited by how many trees the city is able to water.
Possible Future Action:
The NeighborWoods program could be expanded to plant an additional 10,000 trees each year at an estimated cost-per-tree of $35. This very aggressive program would add 14,000 trees annually, and is probably the maximum that PARD could manage. The parks program could be expanded if more watering trucks were purchased, and/or if more private entities will volunteer to water trees. This program could possibly be expanded to plant 1,000 trees per year. Based on the Urban Ecosystem Analysis conducted by American Forests, there are an estimated 140,000 planting sites on Austin residential properties which would yield maximum environmental benefits. A scenario has been analyzed in which two optimally sited trees are planted at 70,000 homes in order to provide maximum shade to south and west-facing windows. The result is nearly 50 million kilowatt-hours of annual energy savings, which equates to a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions of more than 30,000 tons.
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