Discussion:
The City Council held a work session on the city's forestry program including City Code revisions and the Forestry Specification Manual updates on November 16, 2021. The following provides a summary of those recommended revisions for council's consideration:
City Code 90.05
City Code 90.05 contains the rules for the city to follow when property owners fail to comply with certain maintenance of grass, weeds and trees. Specific to trees, it prescribes trimming, cutting, or removing of hazardous private trees that abut a street (e.g. not a boulevard tree but the tree behind the street right-of-way line) is the responsibility of the property owner. However, longstanding practice has been for the city to remove branches or shrubs that overhang the city's street and alley right-of-ways as part of the city's routine management practices, either performed by city crews or contracted out as part of the annual tree trimming services. Additionally, if an overhanging limb of a private tree has been determined to be hazardous and the property owner does not remove it in a timely manor, the city has simply removed the overhanging hazardous limb (and not assessed the property owner for removal as prescribed). The revised language would continue the current practice as described above versus assessing the costs back to the owners.
City Code 130.15
City Code 130.15 contains rules and guidance pertaining to trees threatened by diseases or pests, both private and public trees. Specific to private trees, the city enforces these rules mostly on a reactive basis. The rules are generally clear when a disease or pest can be identified in a hazardous tree. However, it can be sometimes difficult to specifically identify a disease or pest in a dead or dying tree. In those instances, many times the tree is undoubtedly a hazard, but if not able to identify a specific disease or pest, the city's ordinance does not necessarily give authority to cause for the removal of the dead tree (or part thereof). The revised language would allow the city to take action to have the hazardous tree or limb removed regardless of the cause of the dead tree or dead limb that is causing the hazard.
Forestry Specification Manual
The Forestry Specification Manual is a guideline for planting, maintaining, and removing trees and was adopted in 2009. The attached specifications have been reviewed with recommended updates to include technical changes, updates to align with current city code and proposed revisions to city code, updates to align with standard practice and other miscellaneous updates.