Where was Greg Howe when Aspen Ridge and Ruskin Heights were approved? Getting the experience that makes him understand his job

Please click on link for photo of
Urban forester, Greg Howe, being introduced to Fayetteville park board on July 7, 2008


Tree deficit: Too few trees surviving on developed lots in Fayetteville
BY MARSHA L. MELNICHAK Northwest Arkansas Times
Posted on Friday, October 3, 2008
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/nwat/News/69703
Urban forester shares his goals
Fayetteville’s Tree Preservation and Protection Ordinance doesn’t seem to be living up to its name, according to the city’s urban forester.

“The first principle identified in the ordinance is, ‘Preservation shall be the first, best, and standard approach.’ That’s what I’m after: preservation. As much as we can, on site,” said Greg Howe, who became the city’s forester in July.

Saying first that he’s new and may not have a total perception of the ordinance, he is, nonetheless, concerned about how often mitigation is proposed instead of preservation and how often mitigation does not appear to be working.

According to the City Code, mitigation refers to planting trees on a project site in an effort to lessen the environmental damage caused by the injury or removal of trees during development.

Trees planted in mitigation are required to have a 90-percent survivability rate after three years; but, so far, the average survivability rate is about 30 percent.

Howe said there is a high probability that a tree that survives three years will continue to survive, and that’s the Results of Three-Year Tree Mitigation Inspections
Name Tree Survival Percentage University Village 24 % Maple Valley subdivision 47 % Bridgedale subdivision 78 % McDonald Eye Associates 0 % Crowne at Razorback Apartments 8 % Average 31. 4 % Required for release of bond 90 % * Based on preliminary data from only five inspections. City code requires that 90 percent of mitigation trees be healthy and have a reasonable chance of surviving to maturity after three years. Mitigation trees are those planted on-site in an effort to lessen environmental damage caused by development.

— Source: city of Fayetteville reasoning behind the threeyear time frame.

City code established a minimum percentage of tree canopy for each different zoning district, ranging from 10 percent in some of the downtown areas to 35 percent in the Hillside / Hilltop Overlay District.

If that can’t be preserved for whatever reason, then on-site mitigation is next, explained Jeremy Pate, director of current planning.

“ What we’re seeking is that preservation to meet that minimum percent canopy. If they have to go below that, then they plant a certain amount of trees” based on priority and other factors, Pate said.

In 2003, the city passed an ordinance amendment that allowed tree mitigation on residential subdivisions. It had been allowed in commercial and multifamily zoning areas since before that.

Developers pay a threeyear bond for the cost of the trees, the installation of the trees and maintaining them for three years. The bond is usually about $ 250 per tree, Pate said.

As part of that ordinance, Howe is required to inspect the trees after the three years.

“ At least 90 percent of them have to be healthy for us to reset that bond, ” Pate said.

Since July, Howe has inspected five tree mitigation projects.

“ As we stand right now, the average survival rate is only 31. 4 percent, ” Howe said.

He described his observation as preliminary and stressed that it is based on only five samples. He has four more inspections to do by year’s end.

Pate said the results may not be as across-the-board as the early results suggest.

“ If it becomes systematic, Because of the bond, the city has the option to tell the developer to replace the trees while the city holds the letter of credit for a longer period or can call the letter of credit and use the funds from it to plant and maintain the trees.

Maintenance is key Howe’s first impression is that the mitigation trees haven’t been cared for, though there may be other circumstances leading to the low survival rate. He said he wasn’t here but he thinks, “ They’re getting planted, maybe watered when they first get planted, and everybody’s walking away, ” The problem, he said, is not just in unattended subdivisions but also on lots with maintenance staffs.

McDonald Eye Associates “ only had three trees that they needed to keep alive, and yet all three of them are not there. They’re dead and the stumps are still in the ground. Here’s a place that has high maintenance, but the trees are dead, ” Howe said.

Crowne at Razorback Apartments has immaculate

Owners and developers of Lakewood subdivision believe mitigation is working at that site off of Zion Road. Frontier elm trees will one day form a canopy over streets in an area that had previously been used for the excavation of red dirt.

Tom Hennelly, owner of H 2 Engineering Inc., said irrigation is “ pretty important” in the trees’ survival.

“ It does help when you’ve got the developer of the project building the homes. They’re the ones bonding the trees so they take a lot more care and effort to insure that they survive, ” Hennelly said. Purpose is preservation

“ My understanding is, it’s called the Tree Preservation and Protection Ordinance. It says right up front, objective number one is ‘ to preserve existing tree canopy, ’” Howe said.

For him, that may mean saving “ fencerow” and “ scrub” trees as well as large or ornamental trees often favored by architects and developers.

“ Sometimes on a site, all you’re left with are those trees because the site was farmland. No trees were saved on the interior of the site, but the trees that are there are the only trees on the site, ” Howe said.

From a landscape architect’s perspective, the fencerow trees aren’t worth saving, crowded against one another and not in a good shape, he said, adding, “ However, the code is a tree preservation code, and it’s trying to maintain a certain level of tree cover, of canopy cover, for the city. ”

For him, the tree canopy that is there should be saved.

Howe said he thinks it’s a slippery slope to start taking out what someone may consider undesirable trees when they are the only trees on the site.

“ They may not look like the best trees in the world, but they’re the ones that are there and you can, maybe, clear out one or two and give the others a chance to flourish, ” he said.

He is particularly reluctant to approve removing fencerow and scrub trees when “ we know mitigation doesn’t appear to be working. ”

“ Preservation is really what the ultimate goal is, and right now, everybody’s treating it like, ‘ Well, if I don’t meet it, I’ll just mitigate for it, ’” Howe said.

He said he doesn’t believe that’s the intent of the code.

“ They have to meet the requirement. We’re letting a lot of this requirement possibly be lost because we’re not getting the preservation, ” Howe said, adding again that he is new and may not have a whole understanding.

Pate, however, also said tree preservation is the number one priority of the tree preservation code.

Howe is concerned that in most of the plans he has seen, developers are not meeting the minimum tree preservation requirement and often propose about half of it.

“ It’s not like we’re even getting close, ” he said.

“ As it stands right now, the preliminary part of this is that it just looks like mitigation is not working. It kind of gets back to the fact that preservation probably should be a better approach than doing a lot of mitigation, or we need to upgrade the mitigation standards to say that they must be on irrigation when they’re planted, ” Howe said.

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