Following residents’ requests to better maintain, replace or remove problematic street trees, on April 26 the Signal Hill City Council agreed to award a contract to landscape architects SWA Group, Inc. to develop a new five-year street-tree master plan by May 2023 for a fee of $100,000.
Associate Engineer Jesus Saldaña said the city’s original tree plan was developed in 2010 as a guide to best practices and policies for the care and maintenance of the approximately 3,400 trees that make up Signal Hill’s “urban forest.”
Saldaña said the 2010 plan needs a “significant revamp” to account for alterations in the urban forest, private development and other changes in the community.
According to the 2010 plan, Signal Hill had 3,600 trees of over 70 different species, with most in “good” or “fair” condition.
SWA will count and assess the health and viability of the city’s current trees beginning May 3, differentiating between those that are in public right-of-ways versus on private property, and make best-practice care recommendations accordingly.
Recommendations would include best pruning cycles, pest control and opportunities for community involvement, Saldaña said. SWA will also facilitate at least five community outreach and education activities over the next year, he added.
In addition, the consultants will review the city’s tree maintenance contract and prepare a work plan and budget recommendations for the Parks and Recreation Commission and Sustainable City Committee to consider before council approval.
Saldaña said residents have complained about vacant tree areas and tree roots damaging sidewalks, adding that some trees, such as Chinese Elms, are expensive to maintain. The city had 479 Chinese Elms in 2010, according to the original master plan—the most of all tree types.
“We have to look at the whole master plan holistically and re-envision some areas as far as tree species palettes,” Saldaña said.
He clarified that the plan’s “multifaceted approach” doesn’t mean changing all trees—“that would be quite an undertaking”— but rather that it will consider the best trees for particular streets and whether replacing trees is still a valid option for vacant areas.
Public Works Director Thomas Bekele added that the plan will include a budget for replacing some trees since the total number of trees has fallen by 200 over the past decade, and will consider drought-tolerant trees more than the original 2010 plan did.
Councilmember Edward Wilson questioned why the original tree master plan wasn’t continuously updated rather than needing to be completely revised now.
City Manager Hannah Shin-Heydorn said a lot of things have changed in the past decade, including the community’s needs and priorities, awareness of the benefits of urban forests and the sturdiness of certain tree species.
“We can’t stay stagnant,” Shin-Heydorn said. “We’re taking all this new information that we’ve accumulated since the original plan—using that feedback, using community concerns, using council concerns—and weaving that in.”
Shin-Heydorn said “agnostic” guidelines also help guide the city’s response to community requests regarding trees.
“We want to make it as rigorous, robust and overarching of a document as possible so staff can rely upon it to make objective decisions,” she said. “We want to try to apply those uniformly so that no one neighborhood feels like they’re getting special treatment, or no one person feels like they can get a special request in.”
Public Works will also make updates to the tree plan—along with other infrastructure master plans—on a regular basis so plans don’t have to be completely overhauled every few years, Shin-Heydorn said.
Saldaña noted that the City received four proposals in March for developing a street-tree master plan that it reviewed before finding SWA the most qualified, with “significant experience” in developing urban forest and landscaping master plans, including for cities such as Long Beach.
“Having a great plan really creates some consistency and, of course, beautifies the city,” Mayor Keir Jones said. “And I’ve noticed some changes with trees from the drought perspective or disease, so I’m sure we’ll have to look at that.”
