Salt lake city urban forestry program

Salt Lake City Urban Forestry is responsible for the care and maintenance of the vibrant urban forest. Permits are required prior to removing, pruning, or planting any tree in the public right-of-way. Please call the Urban Forestry office to determine if the tree is in the public right-of-way before performing any work.

To view the services provided for trees in the park strip by Urban Forestry, click here! Permits will only be issued to arborists certified by the International Society of Arboriculture. The City has replaced trees and worked to prevent future tree loss.

However, replacements for mature, large trees take decades to provide comparable air and water quality mitigation capacity. With continued development and climate change, adverse environmental impacts will increase particularly, higher summer temperatures and ozone levels, localized flooding, and storm sewer overflow. The urban forest has numerous strengths, including existing tree stands, code and policy provisions, public support, and public appreciation for its many benefits. Building upon these strengths can address the vulnerabilities that occur primarily due to a fragmented approach to planning and managing the urban forest.

The urban forest is a living infrastructure system that requires sustained interdepartmental collaboration to optimize its benefits. The urban forest also needs land managers to implement solutions when conflicts occur with other infrastructure systems.

While other means of mitigating environmental impacts are available, most are more expensive than tree planting. And few if any of these mitigation measures provide the multiple ecological, social, and urban design benefits that trees do. By prioritizing the many opportunities available to preserve and grow the urban forest, Salt Lake City can build resilience into its urban fabric while fostering healthy communities. Engagement Opportunities. We will also be conducting surveys in neighborhoods and business districts with lower rates of tree canopy to understand the needs and opportunities around the urban forest.

The Draft Plan will be presented to the public via digital open house to allow for public review and comment. And the City now has updated inventory information on approximately 28, public property trees. If funding continues at current levels the inventory will be complete in Project is complete, with a comprehensive GIS map available online. With the help of Capital Improvement Project funding the City was able to plant significantly more trees that it removed in , and is on track to continue to plant more trees than are removed in The City's Urban Forestry Program now sells the vast majority of its wood waste to a company that recycles it into high quality mulch.

The program also provides some wood chips free of charge to community food gardens and is now also selling some of the higher quality logs resulting from removal of public property trees to a wood crafter. In the summer of , the Urban Forestry program also rented a soil sifter to sort a significant amount of high quality soil from large piles of landscape waste. The Urban Forestry Program has moved away from tree spraying in favor of direct trunk injection to combat insect and disease problems in public property trees.

This method is much preferred as the chemicals being used go directly into the trees' vascular system, therefore no chemicals are introduced to the environment directly surrounding the tree.