Summit pictures

Wendy Morgan, Mary Ann Neely, Laura Patlove, Emily King


Eliza Vermillion, Jennifer Clymer, John Paul Moore, Matt Hollon


Kevin Thuesen, Ray Henning, Elizabeth Walsh, Walter Passmore


Susan Scallon, Margaret Russell, Bhasker Reddi, Scott Rwoin, Chris Riley


Beki Halpin, Gardtner Sumner, Michael Embesi

RE: Clean up comments

Is there anyway we can clean up the postings for the summit. It looks like HTML tags are visible for some groups.

R'

"Plant More Trees!" Group Comments

State of the Urban Forest Summit

Ladybird Johnson Wildflower Research Center

January 9, 2009

Breakout Group:

• Eliza Vermillion (University of Texas, co-organizer of Forest Summit)

• Jennifer Clymer (City of Austin, Austin Climate Protection Program)

• John Paul Moore (Hyde Park Neighborhood/ANC)

• Keith Babberney (Urban Forestry Board, private arborist)

• Linda Guerrero (Parks and Recreation Board, Chair)

• Matt Hollon (City of Austin, Watershed Protection & Development Review)

• Mitzi Cotton (City of Austin, Law Department)

Top Action Items identified by Breakout Group

1. Coordinate people and resources (programs, managing entities, and funding sources) and plant more trees.

2. Consolidate all existing ordinances and rules into one document with educational support materials.

3. Quantify and publicize diverse public and private benefits of Urban Forests.

Selected Option:

1. Coordinate people and resources and plant more trees:

1. Coordinate tree programs between City departments,[1] other agencies,[2] nonprofit organizations, neighborhoods, etc. (who is doing what with what resources).
2. Identify existing tree resources[3] and identify areas for additional tree plantings (e.g., parks, riparian areas, public right-of-way, TxDOT right-of-way, etc.).
3. Plant and maintain trees!

Tree Summit web site:

http://urbanforestsummit.blogspot.com/

---

[1] Departments identified: Austin Energy (e.g., Climate Protection Program, Green Building Program), PARD, Watershed Protection & Development Review, Austin Water Utility (e.g., for watering, taps), and Public Works (e.g., Bicycle & Pedestrian Program—interest in shaded areas).

[2] For example, work with Urban Forestry Board’s Tree Oversight Committee.

[3] Seek City Manager and/or City Council to sponsor and support.

to sponsor and support.

"How the City Hurts your Brain" and other articles of interest

Here is a link to the article that Dean Fritz Steiner mentioned at the Summit
The following appeared on Boston.com:
Headline: How the city hurts your brain
Date: Jan 9, 2009

"THE CITY HAS always been an engine of intellectual life, from the 18th-century coffeehouses of London, where citizens gathered to discuss chemistry and radical politics, to the Left Bank bars of modern Paris, where Pablo Picasso held forth on modern art. Without the metropolis, we might not have had the great art of Shakespeare or James Joyce; even Einstein was ..."
____________________________________________________________

To see this recommendation, click on the link below or cut and paste it
into a Web browser:


http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2009/01/04/how_the_city_hurts_your_brain?s_campaign=8315

*****************************************************************

Can't see the forest for the trees? You need APA's latest PAS
Report!
Planning the Urban Forest

Urban forests provide enormous environmental, social, and economic benefits.
Communities can offset the ecological impact of land development by
utilizing the urban forest's natural capacity to mitigate environmental
impacts. Yet the tree canopy in many U.S. metropolitan areas has declined
significantly over the last few decades. What can communities do?
Planning the Urban Forest: Ecology, Economy, and Community Development
addresses the need for planners to adopt a green infrastructure approach and
presents the technical means to incorporate trees into planning. The
culmination of a three-year research project, this Planning Advisory Service
report was prepared by the American Planning Association in collaboration
with the International Society of Arboriculture and American Forests, and
supported by the USDA Forest Service. Thirteen case studies illustrate best
practices in planning for urban and community forestry.
Order your copy today

www.planning.org

C2009 All Rights Reserved
American Planning Association

Urban Forestry Board --Invitation to attend

The Urban Forestry Board meets every third Wednesday of the month at the Parks and Recreation Department on Riverside and Lamar, next door to Zach Scott Theatre. This Wednesday we had a lively meeting. Dr Damon Waitt presented his invasive species report, with contributors/attendees Jessica Wilson (Keep Austin Beautiful), Alice Nance and Margaret Russell (Keep Austin Wild), and Rene' Barerra from PARD. We will vote on the new invasive species resolution at the February meeting. Attending the UFB meetings is a great way to stay in the loop and maintain the energy of the summit, and we hope that we will see you at upcoming meetings.

Some new initiatives emerging from the Board are to more actively disseminate information to neighborhoods and educate the public about Oak Wilt. On Rabb Rd in Zilker, I have witnessed the decline and death of dozens of trees in this area. Homeowners are the first line of defense in preventing and mitigating the spread of this fungus.

We are also gearing up to revive the Tree Tour, a tour of registered trees in Austin. This annual tour was a key part of Margaret Hoffman's (the "tree lady") Think Trees campaign. Margaret claims that the first line of defense in protecting our trees is public involvement. We hope to host a bike tour in the fall to celebrate our "oldest citizens" on this tour and to honor the great Margaret Hoffman as well.

These are a couple of the highlights, and I encourage each of you to share your thoughts and ideas about how we can better preserve and maintain our urban forest!

Shannon

Black markers' summary

Urban Forestry Summit notes from: Laura Patlove, Dave Sullivan, Jeremy Solomons, Glen Gillman, Wendy Morgan, Mary Ann Neely, Emily King

How do we show Austin’s residents that trees are good for economy and quality of life?

1. Marketing campaign
2. Schools
3. Central information resource

All suggestions and ideas:

· Print on electric bill

o Information about ecosystem services

o Average electric usage for a house of similar size

· Identify needs and desires of residents and then provide them

· Exhibits

· Provide data and experiences

· Personalize trees with plaque stating “name”, value, age, other info

· Marketing campaign

o Include TV, YouTube, print, etc.

o Solicit corporate sponsors

o Put in terms that everyone can understand (kids)

o Specific to urban forestry

o Marketing and newspaper articles about ecosystem services

o Highlight COA activities

o Tell your neighbor

o Provide estimates for $ value that trees add to property (or offset costs of electric usage)

o Create virtual digital images of city and neighborhoods without trees

o Campaign to include how trees improve: Pedestrian environment, Air quality, Health/inspiration, Sustainability, Biodiversity, Value of property, Lower utility bills/urban heat island, Quarter quality/conservation

· Centralized accurate information resource for COA

o Funding from Climate Protection and Tree Mitigation Fund

o COA departments with tree responsibilities housed under Climate Protection

o Participants could include: PARD, WPDR, NPZD, UTCRP, LCRA, AISD

o Web based (low cost)

· Work with school districts to integrate trees into curriculum (science, geography, social, etc.)

o Include design component that helps students critically evaluate trade offs for tree planting decisions and what “right tree in right place” means

o After school hikes and walks for kids

o “Earth camp”

o Hold events in urban forest spaces

· Pilot projects by City/others to highlight benefits

o Educational signs, obvious example of beauty/function of trees

o Tree plantings and landscaping

· Arboretum = tree museum

· Edible park

Urban Forestry Summit January 9th, 2009

Urban Forestry Summit
January 9th, 2009

Our Group: Christopher Alguire, Rene Barrera, Joyce Basciano, Phil Moncada, Bob Patterson, Nicole Sanford, Tom Suhler, Damon Waitt
(our group's notes are in orange, other colors were other group's suggestions)

Notes:
(our) Urban Forestry Initiative:
Define TREES as natural infrastructure in the City's Land Development Code.

1.) Elect public officials that support initiative
2.) City wide referendum
3.) Education of the Initiative

How can we ____________?
How can we work together to meet the needs of the present without compromising the needs of the future?

• Elect public officials that support UF as a priority
• Education and getting public officials/people involved
• "GIS" collection
• Connecting data/communication/regulation
• Recognize trees as natural infrastructure and change definition in the LDC - i.e. ecosystem services, carbon offsets, "Quality of Life" values
• Fiscal Conservation
• Open dialogue between: developers, utilities ...How open? Define process that is open + flexible, yet also has parameters to make it fair and predictable
• Interdepartmental communication ...Single point of contact for each
• Elect public officials that will help establish coordination + cooperation among city departments, boards, commissions, citizenry ...Platforms include specific systems, like GIS shared through departments
• Regular meetings with stakeholder groups
• Make structure easier for citizens to participate
• Recycle
• Improve reporting of (GIS) protected trees
• Form changes of building development applications
• Regulate growth rate (i.e. Maximum of Permits/year)
• Educate the public, developers, policy makers
• Emphasize cost-effectiveness of current investment NOW in green infrastructure
• Encourage preservation, conservation, and planting of high quality trees in appropriate locations ...identify range of locations and appropriate tree planting opportunities
• Develop a Plan!
  
• Plan ahead for open space/parks in future development areas
• Efficiency & coordinated efforts
• Site planning before development & land clearing
• Elect officials who see trees as a priority for the future
• Give more authority to environmental reviewers in the site planning process
• Need central coordinating body with spokes off of it (diagram shows central body with spokes)
• Require that natural parcel features are part of site development
• Engage the community to determine current needs and project future needs

What we can do NOT to make these goals happen:

• No Communication
• No Education
• No Regulation
• No Beautification
• No Preservation
• No Cooperation
• No Mitigation
• No mediation, more litigation
• More polarization, procrastination
• More back room deals
• No Planning
• No more tree planting
• No more Conservation
• No Diversification

Team Documentation update

Team members: Carol Haywood, Lee Lawson, Linnea Lemon, Pat Murphy, Carolyn Palaima, Chad Phelan, and Harry Savio

Question
How can we foster positive communication and effective public policy that will enhance and sustain our urban forest in a way that will benefit all our constituencies?

Priority One
Review existing policies, programs, and regulations for consistency and revise them.

* Inventory all tree policies, programs, and regulations.
* Determine specific conflicts, obstacles, and duplication.
* Propose changes that fix problems and improve effectiveness to achieve vision of a "green" Austin.

Priority Two
Create a vision for the urban forest that has community-wide support.

Priority Three
Quantify benefits of urban forest to communicate value, and increase and coordinate public education.


Additional Responses to Question from Group Exercise:
Reevaluate penalties and incentives concerning tree removals
Coordinate interdepartmental activities
Provide clear, one-stop location and exhibits for permitting process
City of Austin should lead by example
Revive tree tour map
Gather data
Create management plan/maintenance
Exhibits online
Neighborhood tree planting programs
Create Friends of the Urban Forest group
Effective policy = open, fair, predictable
Coordination with City Manager
Coordination with developers
Develop urban forestry department
Communicate "lessons learned" from ineffective policies/problems
Elect ecology-conscious public officials

Please feel free to blog!

Thank you all so much for you contributions to the summit!

We are looking forward to reading your team summaries. Please be sure to send them in by the weekend of Jan 26th so we can include them in our report that we are submitting to city council, the planning commission, and the city manager.

Please also provide any feedback you have regarding the event and any suggestions you have for next years summit.


-Eliza

The Green Team has posted comments!

Welcome to the Austin Urban Forest Summit blog. Please feel free to use this as a forum to share comments. The attendee list with emails will soon be posted to the Austin Urban Forest Website.

Here are the Green Teams comments which will also be posted to the website soon on the Documentation page.

The following is a copy of the information listed on Team Green's (Emily
Koone, Scott Harris, Gardtner Sumner, Leah Haynie, Karl Krumm, Beki
Halpin, and Michael Embesi) assignment sheet:



How can we establish value of the urban forest as a component of the
most livable city?



Priority One

Establish valuation based on ecosystems services

- Demonstrate link between urban forest and total ecosystem

- Print ecosystem values on utility bills

- Charge full appraisal value for removed trees

- Conduct appraisals with and without trees (including
breakdown of energy savings)

- Establish a dollar value of entire urban forest

- Support research that quantifies value of urban forest

- Establish the urban forest as "green" infrastructure with
annual CIP budget and valuation

- Urban forest policy to provide clean air as an eco-service



Three Specifics to Address Priority One

- Standardize criteria for establishing tree valuation based
upon ecosystem service value

- Establish/edit city ordinances and procedures to incorporate
criteria

- Create incentives for preservation (i.e. tax breaks,
development bonuses)



Priority Two

Consolidate, coordinate, and standardize city tree policy while making
sure that different types of urban forest have policies tailored to them

- Charge full appraisal value for removed trees

- Urban forest policy to provide clean air as an eco-service



Priority Three

Central clearinghouse (web site?) of tree information

- Livable city's website quantifies and publicizes ecosystem
service (lower utility bills, etc.)

- Publicize research on human benefits (happiness, mental state
of mind, etc.) of trees/healthy ecosystems

- Ask developers what would be incentive to preserve more trees


- Work with tree advocates, chambers of commerce, developers,
and business association to promote the value of urban forest