New Haven Independent

Mayor Vows To Plant 10,000 Trees

by Thomas MacMillan | October 6, 2009 7:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (28)

Neighborhoods that plant together, stay together, Kris Sainsbury observed. It happened in City Point — and it will now happen citywide.

As the mayor set an ambitious new tree-planting goal for New Haven, City Point activist Sainsbury (pictured in plaid shirt at a tree planting last year) offered reasons for neighborhoods to support it.

Mayor John Destefano’s announcement came at a Monday night City Point fundraiser for the Urban Resources Initiative (URI), the local non-profit responsible for much of the tree planting that takes place in New Haven. Under the advisement of URI Director Colleen Murphy-Dunning, Destefano announced a five-year commitment to planting 2,000 trees per year.

The initiative will have a “double bottom line,” he said: It will not only make the city greener and more beautiful, but it will bring neighborhoods together around the common goals of planting and maintaining new trees.

That’s what has happened in City Point, as Sainsbury described it during a pre-fundraiser tour of the neighborhood. She told URI board members and supporters that the City Point community has been transformed by jointly planting trees and gardens. Neighbors feel a new sense of local togetherness and pride, she said. They come together to organize community events.

Monday night’s fundraiser was held at City Point’s Sage restaurant, where attendees were treated to a sumptuous spread of hors d’euvres, wine, and beer in exchange for their $50 entrance fee. At 5:30, as the evening was getting underway, guests boarded three mini-buses to see what URI has been up to locally.

The first stop was City Point’s Bayview Park, where Sainsbury was waiting to extol the virtues of URI, armed with a table full of snapshots of the neighborhood. She stood not far from where she helped to plant an American Liberty Elm over a year ago.

Sainsbury said URI has worked with the neighborhood to put in trees and gardens on public and private property in City Point, to the benefit of everyone involved. Planting trees has been shown to cut down on crime, Sainsbury said. It also can “make people more friendly and happier,” she said.

Bayview Park used to be dirty and littered with drug paraphernalia, Sainsbury said. People didn’t want to go there. With URI’s help, the neighborhood cleaned up the park and put new trees and shrubs in the ground. Then people started using the greenspace. They began to hold an annual celebration of the park, chanting, “Whose park is this? It’s ours!”

This year, for the first time ever, neighbors held an autumn festival in the park for local kids. “Many children had never carved or drawn on a pumpkin before,” Sainsbury said.

Less than an hour later, Mayor DeStefano echoed Sainsbury’s sentiments when he stood to address dozens of tree enthusiasts in the second floor bar area at Sage.

Community organizing develops differently from how it used to 11 years ago, he said. Back then, it was block-by-block, and neighbors would get together against something they didn’t like. Now, he said, people are organizing for things: to plant trees, to put in community gardens.

Often the result is “less about gardens and more about community,” DeStefano said.

“It’s amazing, it’s strong, and it’s strengthening the fabric of this great little city.”

Before announcing his ambitious new arbor agenda, DeStefano gave a little background. “Colleen [Murphy-Dunning] came to see me three months ago,” he said. “She pointed out we were losing more trees than we’re planting.” The city plants 300 to 400 trees per year, but it has to remove about 500 each year, he said. Trees are also suffering because of the way the city builds its sidewalks, he explained.

DeStefano said Murphy-Dunning later came back to his office with a number: 2,000. That’s how many trees she proposed the city plant each year.

Addressing an applauding crowd on Monday night, the mayor announced that he aims to have 2,000 trees planted each year for the next five years. He said his budget for next year will include money for 1,000 trees, to be planted by URI. The other 1,000 will be paid for by private partners. The mayor mentioned an unnamed local university he hopes will take on tree planting as a priority.

“The city is going to increase by six times” its budget for trees, DeStefano said. He promised to increase annual arbor money from $50,000 to $300,000. He later said the money would come out of the capital budget. The mayor’s proposal will need the approval of the Board of Aldermen.

After his remarks to the room, DeStefano said a new city tree initiative will have a “double bottom line” of increased community integration and a healthful municipal tree canopy. He predicted the plan would find the support of aldermen. “As I recall, these trees are planted in neighborhoods they represent,” he said.

“I’m pretty excited,” said Murphy-Dunning, after the speeches were over. “We’ve been working toward this for a long time.”

Murphy-Dunning (pictured) has been director of URI since 1995. Along with Chris Ozyck, she’s one of two employees at the organization, and the only full-timer. That may have to change if URI is to quintuple the amount of trees it plants, she acknowledged.

“It will be a major challenge,” she said. “I truly do wake up worrying about it.” But it’s important to set goals that make you stretch, she said.

Not only does URI need to plant more trees, but it needs to find private citizens and institutions to plant trees on their property. She said she plans to approach Yale and the Housing Authority of New Haven to ask them to buy trees for their property. URI will also be approaching regular city residents, to see if they will be willing to put trees in their backyards.

To create an army of tree planters, URI will rely on volunteers and expand its seasonal employment programs for teens and others, Murphy-Dunning said. “Teens are going to be the main focus, with other vulnerable populations,” she said. URI is looking into working with re-entry programs to hire released prisoners to plant trees, she said.

URI will be planting some 35 different species of trees, she said. The organization will be concentrating on putting trees in the neighborhoods need them the most.

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Posted by: what | October 6, 2009 9:22 AM

What recession?

Posted by: Jim | October 6, 2009 9:23 AM

WONDERFUL - FANTASTIC - I support this 1000%. Please let me know where I can make a donation.

Thank you !

Posted by: streever | October 6, 2009 9:24 AM

Excellent work Chris & Colleen, and thanks again to Sage Restaurant for hosting us.

I'm extremely glad to see the City up it's contribution--this puts us online with other progressive cities around the country and will make a huge difference in New Haven.

Posted by: streever | October 6, 2009 10:27 AM

Jim:
E-mail uri@yale.edu, and THANK YOU!

Posted by: anon | October 6, 2009 10:51 AM

You should plant more trees in a recession, not less. Each tree planted helps families tremendously with heating and cooling costs (not to mention helping to counteract falling property values) and therefore more than pays for itself.

New Haven should set its sights higher than 2,000 per year -- why not 5,000?

Posted by: Nan Bartow | October 6, 2009 11:14 AM

URI is truly an extraordinary organization that benefits New Haven in many different ways. Not only does URI plant trees in all of our neighborhoods, but it brings people together as a community and helps us learn ways to improve our streetscapes, our greenspaces, and our parks. The URI interns, with the assistance of a bevy of dedicated New Haven teens, work throughout New Haven helping community groups learn to steward and green our land.
Colleen Murphy-Dunning and Chris Ozyck provide never-failing enthusiasm and support for all of these green planting projects. I am confident that, under the encouragement and direction of Colleen and Chris, New Haven citizens will accomplish the impressive goal of planting 2,000 trees a year in the city of New Haven.

Posted by: Are You Kidding Me | October 6, 2009 11:24 AM

I have no problem with the idea of planting trees troughout the city.

But not in this fiscal time? As many of have heard from the Mayor "the city has no money". So why use this money from the capital budget for trees and not education, crime prevention or street repairs.

So let me get this straight the Mayor can increase the money donated from $50,000 to $300,000. Then expects all the city workers to take paycuts with increases in medical & pension. So we will actually be making less money. Lets not forget his 30 - 40 workers that work directly under him got raises this year along with himself & Reggie Mayo but the rest of city workers are to take the hit.

Sorry to all of the people at Urban Resources Initiative (URI). But our families need the money more than we need trees.

So remember when your childrens classroom is to full or the custodians are under staffed atleast we have new trees.

When the street cntinue to have thousands of pot holes remember atleast we have trees.

When crime is still running rampant atleast we have trees.

Last but not least when there are not enough parks & rec, public works employees to trim these trees and take care of them when the fall down in a storm. Remember how happy you all were when John DeStefano pulled another magic trick to come up with money for something other than his own employees.

ALDERMAN Please vote this down!!

Or atleast table it for a year or two until were are in a better financial position.

Posted by: ChuckP | October 6, 2009 11:50 AM

Are You Kidding Me, I agree with you.

Posted by: what | October 6, 2009 12:20 PM

Are you kidding Me:

Ditto. I love trees, couldn't live without them. If the Mayor wants to plant more, then go out and apply for grants from foundations to pay for it. When is this stuff ever going to stop. Every time he stands in front of an audience, he promises them the world, with MY money.

Posted by: Martha Smith | October 6, 2009 1:10 PM

To those who think that this is not the time for the City to support tree planting because of the poor economy.

Remember that local people will be planting the trees. URI hires local teens (in addition to the volunteers) to plant their trees and that money is going back into the local economy and providing much needed youth employment.

Trees also increase property values, making New Haven a more desirable place to live.

Posted by: Norton Street | October 6, 2009 2:52 PM

http://www.esf.edu/pubprog/images/elm.jpg

Trees add more in value then they take away in cost.

Posted by: nfjanette | October 6, 2009 2:58 PM

I have no professional knowledge of landscaping or tree care, but common sense would seem to indicate that the city residents and administration need to have a much longer term view of the management cycle of trees. One obvious example of the lack of this understanding currently is the surprise by residents in a neighborhood that has a large number of older trees when those trees reach the end of their reasonable life cycle. While the focus of the NHI story was supposed to be the "murder" of trees by sidewalks (which I find to be perhaps as important to city life as trees), I found the following quote from Chris Ozcyk just as important to a good understanding of the situation:

�Eighty years is a pretty darn good life� for an urban oak tree, Ozcyk said. �They are getting close.�

It would seem that if we want streets to enjoy a long term experience of tall canopies, there will need to be multiple cycles of plantings on every block so that as one set of trees reaches the end of their usable life cycle (either because of age, size, or damage) and is properly removed, the next generation is only 5/10/20 years behind in growth rather than newly planted in response to the removal of the oldest growth trees. The key word for success would seem to be management.

Posted by: MIDWESTERN GRUMP | October 6, 2009 3:26 PM

Entirely too many trees in this part of the country! They damage roofs and have rodents taking over our city.

A garden needs sun not shade to grow a good tomato!

Perhaps the city can show that it can take care of the trees that it has instead of butchering them. Many old trees in this city look terrible. UI line crews and the city workers don't seem to know first thing about pruning trees.

We should spend the money to get a licensed arborist in here before we plant more trees! Doesn't seem like anyone knows how to prune a try proper around these parts. It's a shame to walk down some streets.

Posted by: what | October 6, 2009 3:47 PM

Martha,

Give me the tree, pay my son to plant it, and take the money out of someone other than my pocket. Why is every time the govt want to spend money, you liberals claim it will stimulate the economy. Give me break, giving a kid $50 to plant a tree won't stimulate anyone's economy except for the bureaucrats who will manage this process.

Posted by: Brian V | October 6, 2009 3:49 PM

Are you kidding me:
No one in the private sector is getting a raise either, be happy you have a job. If you don't like what you are getting paid -go get a different job.
Taxes are collected to benefit and maintain the city not just to pay employees. We are losing trees faster than we replace them, that needs to be addressed. $300k is a drop in the bucket and money well spent.
That comes from a guy who doesn't agree with King John too much either. -With that being said.

Ozyck For Mayor!

Posted by: anon | October 6, 2009 4:51 PM

Great image, Norton Street.

Trees will revive the city. The New Haveners who started the first tree planting program in the country realized this hundreds of years ago.

Posted by: Claudia Herrera | October 6, 2009 8:32 PM

This summer we participated for a first time with URI.

Everybody where helpful, nice and you can tell that all are very hardworking people. They support us and proved us the best they could for us to accomplish our �first� step to improve and support the quality of life in Fair Haven.

Please get involve you are spending a lot more time and energy wringing all the things that can be wrong , Focus of what YOU can do to improve a little bit of what is going wrong. Food, Education and Violence will not going to be more affected because a group of volunteers OUR community children, grammas, mothers, fathers etc�WORKED THOGETER.

Posted by: Chris O | October 6, 2009 9:56 PM

Good News -

Trees also help reduce pot holes and extend roadware by shading the roads and protecting from extreme heat. Trees also reduce help crime. But I think the real answer to getting people back to work is to get people/ businesses to invest in New Haven. The new economy is based on quality of life. People will invest or choose to stay in New Haven if it looks better. Trees are a tangible symbol of optimism and hope.
A majority of these trees will be targeted to neighborhoods with the highest need for tree cover such as the Hill. The trees will provide the economic, social, health and ecological services that have been afforded to other neighborhoods with good tree cover.
Also URI is and will continue to raise additional money to keep the cost per tree lower than market rate.

Posted by: New and Improvement | October 6, 2009 10:56 PM

And they'll set bold goals that'll be forgotten as soon as the deadline passes. The commissioner of trees will they be overheard asking, "You didn't really think I'd plant 10,000 trees did you?"

Posted by: Brian Tang | October 6, 2009 11:25 PM

AWESOME! I love to plant trees. It's such satisfying work; you can come back years from now and say "I helped plant that tree!" There's nothing better.

Posted by: streever | October 7, 2009 7:43 AM

As Chris O points out, these trees have demonstrable benefits.

The cities much needed increase in funding brings us online with other major cities around the country. In those cities, however, City Hall does not have a partner like URI who keeps the trees below market cost & also donates the time to plant them & water them.

New Haven / URI is an incredible partnership, and despite the recession, this is an excellent move.

Posted by: what | October 7, 2009 9:29 AM

Trees also will help close the achievement gap, they will reduce the cost of gas, put people back to work, reduce our taxes, and help me retire at 50 with a fortune. Hey guys, did I miss anything?

Posted by: Claudia Herrera | October 7, 2009 9:47 AM

What

I shouldn�t but I did. I�m taking to you.

How old are you? What you doing for living? Where are you living?

Vision generates faith, hope and courage.

Posted by: New and Improved | October 7, 2009 10:59 PM

Claudia!! He's being sarcastic ...

Posted by: Melissa Moog | October 8, 2009 7:42 AM

why not appoint a volunteer arborist who could help the neighborhoods manage and tend their new and existing trees to expand their lifetimes as long as possible? You might turn one of those teen volunteers into a future new urban forester.

Posted by: J. Hart | October 8, 2009 9:01 AM

Melissa

URI already has volunteers that work with them, and while I know that Chris Ozyck is a professional, much of his work with URI and the city is on his own time and volunteer in nature. Your idea is a terrific one, but one that I believe is already happening under URI. That doesn't mean that they can't use more volunteers!

Posted by: drowninginleaves | October 9, 2009 10:49 AM

More trees are fine, but do some research on which species produce the most leaves and which are the slowest to disintegrate. Oaks are terrible on both counts, and there are many streets in the city where inches-deep layers of leaves remain on the streets until April, blowing into huge drifts by the relentless northwest winds and clogging storm drains. Consider locusts.

Alternatively, develop better methods of getting the leaves off the streets each autumn and winter. If the city can afford more trees, it can afford more sweeps.

Posted by: The Count | October 10, 2009 12:19 PM

Mao Zedong: "Let a million flowers bloom."
John DeStefano: "Let ten thousand trees bloom."

Mayor Vows To Plant 10,000 Trees

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