12 City Trees
Looking for a template as you craft or revise
your community's urban forest master plan (UFMP)?
Ithaca once again leads the way. The newly revised doc-
ument includes a master plan, tree inventory data, and
arboricultural guidelines.
To borrow from the Pittsburgh UFMP, "An Urban Forest
Master Plan is a road map, providing detailed infor-
mation, recommendations, and resources needed to
effectively and proactively manage and grow a city's tree
canopy. More importantly it provides a shared vision
for the future of the urban forest to inspire and engage
stakeholders in the care and protection of trees."
Ithaca Shade Tree Advisory Committee Chair Nina
Bassuk says, "Ithaca's newly revised UFMP has compo-
nents that many municipalities might be interested in,
including specs for soil, soil volume, and nursery stock.
It also has our tree care guidelines for site selection,
tree selection, tree protection during construction, tree
Ithaca's Urban Forest Master Plan: A Template for Other Munis
removal, and even our solar panel policy." There are
meticulously rendered tree planting details for varied cir-
cumstances including planting with CU-Structural Soil.
Nina says, "I would also like to point folks to our Urban
Horticulture Institute Community Forestry website,
where resources include several management plans
and ordinances that might be of interest, and advice on
creating master plans."
The timeline of events leading to the current Ithaca Plan
was as follows:
•
In 1987, Ithaca passed a tree protection ordinance
which, among other things, codified the role of
the Ithaca Shade Tree Advisory Committee. The
Committee had existed before that but wasn't writ-
ten into law until 1987. Ithaca's first complete street
tree inventory was also completed in 1987.
•
The first Ithaca Urban Forest Master Plan was cre-
ated in 2006 by the Ithaca Shade Tree Advisory
Committee based on inventory data and policies and
goals that were developed by the Committee.
•
In 2014 the Committee decided to overhaul the
Master Plan and make it more comprehensive to
include up-to-date inventory information, updated pol-
icies, and a comprehensive section on Arboricultural
Guidelines and Specifications. The Master Plan was
Frontier elm in fall in Ithaca by Nina Bassuk
12 City Trees
by Michelle Sutton, City Trees Editor
