[BATN] SF incapable of maintaining street trees Date: 25 Jan 2006 19:43:36 -0800 Published Wednesday, January 25, 2006, in the San Francisco Examiner Deadline for goal of 5,000 new city trees approaches DPW claims more resources needed By Marisa Lagos As March approaches, Mayor Gavin Newsom's self-imposed deadline for The City to plant 5,000 trees annually -- a goal that will bring 25,000 new trees to San Francisco streets by 2010 -- also draws near. While officials say San Francisco will meet the first goal by the second week of March, when California celebrates Arbor Day, some question whether The City will be able to maintain the new trees as well as its old ones. According to the Department of Public Works, which maintains about one-third of The City's 99,000 street trees, mature trees should be pruned about once every three years. Currently, DPW only gets to trees about once every six years, due to staffing and resource constraints. With the influx of new trees, DPW officials say they need an additional $1.1 million a year -- an extra $6.7 million annually by 2015 -- to meet maintenance goals. Green lovers point to trees on Market Street that are overgrowing their grates, and trees citywide that may be uprooted by the next storm if they are not pruned soon. The problem is only compounded by the fact that the more than 4,000 new trees planted since last March need a lot more love and care than the mature ones. "At this point, we are not yet nervous, but we definitely are concerned," said DPW Deputy Director Mohammed Nuru, adding that the department has only 12 arborists on staff. "We want to be able to visit every [new] tree once a week, and one person can visit about 50 to 100 trees a day. You can't build the Champs-Elysées without the money for maintenance." DPW's Bureau of Urban Forestry, which oversees landscape maintenance, sidewalk and curb repairs, as well as tree planting and maintenance, currently can only dedicate about $1.7 million of its $10.7 million budget towards maintaining and planting street trees, said bureau head Paul Sacamano. Newsom's newly appointed "Green Czar," Marshall Foster, says he is working on a master plan for the funding and maintenance of trees. Foster, a city planner, says a one-time $11 million influx -- primarily federal grants -- will help with Newsom's bold goal, but Nuru cautioned that maintenance funds will still be an issue. "We are a little understaffed to be everywhere we need to be," Foster said. "But we're trying not to let it paralyze us and to engage the community so we can do more with what we have." Recently, 100 trees were planted in the South of Market neighborhood and, before that, 87 were planted in the Tenderloin; another 500 will be planted on Arbor Day. Funds for planting those trees are from the one-time $11 million fund. Foster points to the Tenderloin, where neighbors have set up a "tree watch" to make sure the new additions to San Francisco's urban forest are properly maintained. In other neighborhoods, residents have agreed to oversee the upkeep of trees and landscaping. Sacamano cautions against depending on residents to maintain trees. Despite the challenges, however, officials seem determined to meet Newsom's goal. "It can't be a 'but' -- 'We want to plant but we can't maintain it'," said Sacamano. "We have to say, 'We want to do this and we have to figure out how.'" Director floats plans for greener San Francisco DPW Deputy Director Mohammed Nuru would like to see San Francisco put a lot more resources towards street trees -- and he has some ideas how to do it. Pointing toward the great benefits of San Francisco's trees -- increased property values and the hundreds of tons of air pollution taken out of the environment each year -- Nuru argues the investment would pay dividends quickly. DPW has already approached the Mayor's Office with the idea of a citywide property tax, officials say. Nuru thinks it could be sold to voters, because private owners are currently responsible for the trees in front of their property, and are liable if anyone trips over them. Since trees can cost thousands of dollars to maintain, Nuru says he believes property owners may be willing pony up $15 a month so The City can take the approximately 60,000 privately maintained trees off their hands. Nuru said he would also like to see the Transportation Authority, which oversees the $70 million collected annually from a voter-approved sales tax, spend more of that money on trees. The TA is charged with handing out $2.7 billion over a 30-year period to numerous city projects, and about $41 million of the total is carved out for street tree planting and maintenance. TA Chief Deputy Maria Lombardo said the agency is handing over about $850,000 this year for trees, and cannot give more. But the TA is looking to secure new funding sources for DPW's street tree initiative, she said. E-mail: mlagos@examiner.com Email article texts/URLs for posting to . Manage your subscription by sending a blank email message to: BATN-subscribe@yahoogroups.com to subscribe, BATN-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com to unsubscribe, BATN-digest@yahoogroups.com to switch email to digest mode, BATN-normal@yahoogroups.com to switch email to normal mode, BATN-nomail@yahoogroups.com to switch email delivery off. See http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BATN for web access & archives.