City Trees

November/December 2015

City Trees is a premier publication focused on urban + community forestry. In each issue, you’ll learn how to best manage the trees in your community and more!

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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

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