{"id":8175,"date":"2016-12-14T12:04:46","date_gmt":"2016-12-14T17:04:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/billemory.com\/blog\/?p=8175"},"modified":"2016-12-16T06:13:26","modified_gmt":"2016-12-16T11:13:26","slug":"trees-and-the-cip","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/billemory.com\/blog\/2016\/12\/trees-and-the-cip\/","title":{"rendered":"Trees and the CIP"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Commissioner
Last night the Planning Commission recommended the approval of the Capital Improvement budget with some important additions. One of the additions was brought on by Commissioner Lahendro’s commentary on the amount for trees requested by Parks&Recreation: (read the story<\/a> at Charlottesville Tomorrow)
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The 2018 CIP proposal in front of us now includes $50,000 per year for the Urban Tree Preservation and Planting line item.\u00a0 This represents a 60% reduction in Parks & Rec original request for $125,000 to perform this work.\u00a0 The original request was carefully considered with input from the Tree Commission.\u00a0 This line item must cover maintenance and preservation of city owned trees that includes:\u00a0 1) treatments for Emerald Ash Borer and Dutch Elm Disease (estimated at $20K); 2) structural pruning and arboreal maintenance of downtown mall trees and Corner trees (estimated at $25K); and, 3) arboreal maintenance of other city trees in parks, road right-of-ways, schools, etc. (estimated at $30K).\u00a0 Proactively maintaining and preserving the City\u2019s existing trees alone will cost $25,000 MORE than this CIP\u2019s total amount.\u00a0 Needless to say, there will be no funds available for planting new trees or replacing trees that are removed due to storm damage or age.\u00a0
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\nThis news is especially disturbing coming on the heels of last year\u2019s Tree Canopy Study which found that Charlottesville experienced a canopy loss of 6.2% (roughly 420 acres) over the past ten years.\u00a0
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\nParks & Rec was able to offset insufficient funding for City trees in recent years with the infusion of VDOT funding for the parkway and route 29 projects.\u00a0 That funding is now gone.\u00a0 The 2013 Comprehensive Plan\u2019s goal to \u201cexpand and protect the overall tree canopy of the City\u201d cannot be achieved with the currently proposed CIP funding level.\u00a0 To simply maintain the City\u2019s current trees will require about $75,000.\u00a0 To meet Tree Commission recommendations to plant 200 new trees per year, at a cost of about $50,000, will require a total CIP funding level of $125,000.\u00a0 I urge the Planning Commission and City Council to increase the Urban Tree Preservation and Planting CIP line item to $125,000.\u00a0 To accept the proposed, much reduced CIP funding level is to knowingly decrease protection and maintenance of the City\u2019s existing trees and totally eliminate the planting of new trees.\u00a0 The City\u2019s tree canopy will continue to decline along with the health and financial benefits it provides to our community.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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