What's at stake:
A few ambitious goals have been set in Fresno’s very first 40-year urban forest management plan, but will funding environmental initiatives be a priority during the upcoming budget process?
Fresno has a new target for how many trees should be planted annually in the city.
About 4,600 new trees every year for the next 40 years.
Doing so would expand Fresno’s tree canopy to cover about 20% of the city, according to Fresno’s urban forest management plan, which the City Council approved May 23. Right now, trees provide cover to only about 14.6% of the city.
The new urban forest plan’s target is much higher than Fresno’s standing goal for planting 1,000 new trees every year, which came into effect in April 2022. Three months later, the City Council commissioned environmental consultant Dudek to create a 40-year plan for Fresno’s tree canopy.
Part of the plan included assessing the city’s current tree stock, which is not equitably distributed across the city. Almost all the communities designated as high or mid-level priority for where new trees should be planted are located south of Shaw Avenue, according to the urban forest plan.
It’s not a new discovery.
While city officials have acknowledged the need to plant new trees and address related equity issues in central and south Fresno communities over the last few years, the urban forest management plan puts in clear terms what changes are needed to equitably grow Fresno’s canopy and support the health and lifespan of existing trees.
Several studies point to positive health outcomes in communities with access to green space, and other research has found a correlation with average household income.
“Targeting neighborhoods that have the least canopy cover and have limited access to urban green spaces will be a key metric to ensure that the canopy of Fresno is equally distributed to communities that already have a low canopy percentage,” according to the urban forest plan.
The plan also mentions other aspects in need of attention, including how the combination of hotter temperatures and drought conditions make trees weaker in defending against pests and disease.
Those climate impacts require a different approach to looking after Fresno’s canopy, including shorter pruning cycles and dedicated irrigation for trees.
Additionally, the report concluded that the city faces several challenges to looking after its tree canopy, “including shortage of staff and high turnover, backlog on maintenance requests and severe lack of funding.”
Will trees be a priority in budget talks?
Before approving the urban forest management plan, some councilmembers questioned whether Mayor Jerry Dyer’s proposed budget would help the city plant 1,000 new trees in 2025 — the annual goal set in 2022.
They also questioned whether the city should be putting $355,500 in Measure P revenue toward cleaning state freeways and roads — a new proposal in Dyer’s 2025 proposed budget.
“When the mayor addressed council last Thursday, he indicated that there would be not enough money in his budget to meet that commitment, so I’m getting conflicting signals here,” Councilmember Tyler Maxwell said during the May 23 City Council meeting.
Director of Public Works Soctt Mozier clarified that the city would need to obtain a state grant to meet the goal of planting another 1,000 trees in 2025.
“We believe there’s a very strong probability of that being funded,” Mozier said. “That would definitely put us over the 1,000 trees right there.“
Maxwell expressed disappointment with how Dyer is proposing the use of city resources to clean freeways that are outside city jurisdiction, especially when those funds could be going toward planting more trees, and prevent the city from having to rely on outside funding to meet its environmental goals.
“Clean freeway embankments are important to me,” Maxwell said, “but given the health benefits and the lack of equity with a lot of our central and south Fresno neighborhoods, I was a little disappointed to see that after we had made that commitment to plant at least 1,000 new trees, it was not fully funded.”
Maxwell added that he may bring forward funding requests to support the city’s tree planting goals. Councilmember Miguel Arias also jumped in to say that he is not supportive of using Measure P tax revenue to “maintain state properties.”
“I would go a little farther than my colleague,” Arias said. “My intention is to move Measure P money back into the core purpose of Measure P. There are plenty of neighborhoods and city parks that need trees to be planted and replaced.”
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