Episode 29 - Inside Richmond: The City's Pulse | What Richmond's Tree Inventory Revealed

Richmond has been quietly doing something most cities put off for years: counting and assessing its public trees one by one.

In this episode, Lindsay Darnell is joined by Thomas Hill, GIS Coordinator for the City of Richmond; Laura Karnes, ISA Certified Arborist at Richmond Parks & Recreation; and Schelby Schlager, IU ERI McKinney Climate Fellow working with the City through an Urban Green Governance grant, to discuss Richmond's new tree inventory and what it reveals about the city's urban forest.

The group explains how thousands of public trees are being evaluated, what the early data is showing, and how the inventory will help guide future planting, maintenance, and management decisions throughout Richmond. They discuss risk ratings, public safety, species diversity, and why trees should be viewed as critical infrastructure that impacts everything from neighborhood temperatures to quality of life.

The conversation also explores lessons learned from Emerald Ash Borer, the importance of species diversity, and the long-term vision for expanding Richmond's tree canopy. Carnes shares practical advice for homeowners on proper tree planting techniques, avoiding common mistakes, and giving young trees the best chance to thrive.

If you've ever wondered how trees affect your neighborhood, your parks, and the future of Richmond, this episode is for you.

Transcript

Welcome And Meet The Tree Team

SPEAKER_03 0:05

Welcome back to another episode of Inside Richmond the City's Pulse. My name's Lindsay Darnell, and I'm your host. And today I have three guests with us to talk about trees. I have Thomas, Laura, and Shelby. Thomas, would you like to introduce yourself and what you do for the city?

SPEAKER_01 0:22

Yeah, thanks for having us, Lindsay. So my name is Thomas Hill. I'm the GIS coordinator for the city of Richmond. I deal with geospatial data ranging from making maps to helping keep our databases running.

SPEAKER_04 0:35

And then Laura. I'm Laura Carnes. I'm the landscape and naturalist leader for the Parks Department and also an ISA certified arborist. We have the floral division at the parks, so we grow all the flowers for the city as well as maintain all the landscaping beds and trails. We also coordinate volunteers, so we do a lot in the floral division, but part of that is helping to manage the trees.

SPEAKER_02 1:02

Okay. Shelby? Yeah, my name is Shelby, and I am an Indiana University student. I am currently in the McKinney Climate Fellow program through the Urban Green Governance Environmental Resilience Institute. So I'm very glad to be here. Thank you.

SPEAKER_03 1:19

Yeah. So you guys are doing a lot of exciting things throughout the city. I know a lot of people have been buzzing about on social media about tree inventory. They knew that you guys were out doing it. And so really I wanted to kind of get you on here. Let's talk about that and let's talk about what you guys are trying to do in the city with trees.

What A Tree Inventory Measures

SPEAKER_03 1:41

So, what is a tree inventory and why is the city doing one now?

SPEAKER_01 1:46

Yeah, so uh there are a couple different kinds of tree inventories that you can get. The one that the city opted for in this case is a uh point-based tree inventory. So we had a contractor come out and they took time with each individual tree in our right-of-ways, and then certain trees within our park system, and they spent time looking at different features like the size, the health, any sort of defects that might be, and then they um put that together into a rating and assigned an overall risk rating to each of our trees.

SPEAKER_03 2:20

Okay. And then how does this help us manage Richmond's urban forest?

SPEAKER_01 2:25

Yeah. So Laura, you want to Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:27

So I think that that is um a big goal of why we want to have an inventory, because how can we take care of uh something if we don't know what we have? So really identifying what are urban forests and um urban forest kind of by definition is just where trees and people intersect. So it's the um all the trees that make up the city that the public owns and the private trees do. Um but the inventory that we did was just on public trees. So um the idea is to really have a better picture of our forest composition and overall health and age and uh maintenance that we need to be doing currently, like on the trees, the high priorities. Ultimately, public safety is the biggest concern, knowing where the dangerous trees are and getting them down quickly is our goal with this inventory.

Age Mix And Canopy Gaps

SPEAKER_03 3:28

So you guys um hosted a task force meeting for the urban green governance um grant that you guys received. And Laura, you had mentioned in that task force something about we don't have enough trees as old as they should be, and that kind of stuck with me. Um can you kind of explain like what the issues are with not having the older trees? We have a lot of younger trees. How is that gonna impact us with um our canopy shade?

SPEAKER_04 4:03

Yeah, so um the goal is to have like a well-balanced age diversity. And actually the the highest classification, uh, the oldest trees is the amount that we want the the least of. We want there to be trees getting old, but then once they start, I mean, because a tr every tree has a lifespan. Um, and even trees, we put them in urban conditions and environments that are pretty hostile and hard to live in. So a lot of times that lifespan is shorter to begin with. Um but so we're trying to get the trees to live as long as possible in urban environments so that they can create the shade and the benefits that we want from them. But the downside of having trees in urban environments is that when they get big and they start to have defects or um issues, health issues, or start to decline, then they can become risky and hazardous. And so that's really where the trees need more proactive maintenance when they're old. But we can plant young trees and and train them properly so that they have less of those defects as they get older, and that's kind of a goal. But uh I'll let Thomas and Shelby talk a little bit more about the specific percentages because that's what they've been working on recently.

SPEAKER_01 5:31

Yeah, you want me to take this one, Shelby? Okay. Yeah, so um looking at our first category of trees, zero to six inches, that's generally considered a small tree. We have roughly 19% of our current population. Um let's backtrack a little bit, talk about the overall composition of the tree inventory real quick before we dive into some of these statistics. We um during our assessment, we had paid for 12,500 points of data to be collected. And we we based that on a projection, or actually the contractor based that on a projection of what um road miles should have for a city of our size or composition in terms of an optimal tree percentage. Um so in the end, they ended up collecting just over 9,000 points of actual trees. So that's how many trees they looked at and spent time with, and then we got just under 3,500 um points for where we can actually go and plant trees in the future. So the overall composition of the inventory is around 12,500 points, just over that mark. So keep that in mind as we're talking about some of the different figures. So that first category, 0 to 6 inch, those small young trees, we have about 19% occupying our canopy right now. Um getting into the next bracket, we have about 21% six to twelve inch trees. So that's starting to get up there in years. Um this is where Laura was talking about we want to have this kind of distribution higher on the front end as the trees are developing. But actually, our largest category percentage is 12 to 24 inch, and that's sitting right around 38%. So about 40% of our canopy is in their middle to later years as far as the tree age distribution goes. And then topping it out as our 24 plus, and we have right around 22% of our trees are sitting in that age or that uh size distribution.

SPEAKER_03 7:24

Do you know if a lot of the the 24 plus are those mostly like at the parks or are they on right of ways? Do you know?

SPEAKER_01 7:34

That's actually a really interesting statistic that I'd like to run. Um try and get a little bit of a sense of where that size distribution is. Um one of the things that as we start to publish more information and more maps with these datas, you'll see that there's a large or actually a highly dense area within Glenmiller Park. There were a lot of trees inventoried in that park in the Highland Golf Course, and then Springwood, it's not quite as highly dense as the other two. But so as we're starting to look at and unpack and run statistics on this data, we're noticing that there's some kind of skewed things that are happening because of these, just the density of points in such a small area. You think of the shapes of the road, that's a really nice grid pattern. That's where a lot of the right-of-way trees are. So it's pretty easy to run statistics when you can eliminate some of these outliers where you're getting really densely crowded areas. So that's something that I've been starting to unpack as we look into the data.

SPEAKER_03 8:32

Okay. And

What The Numbers Reveal

SPEAKER_03 8:33

so I actually had a question: what kind of data is being collected and how will it be used? Um, I know you did mention that you guys had found 3,500 points of places where trees can be planted. And just kind of wanting to talk about the importance of planting these trees with the tree canopy, um, there's a lot of benefits to having that tree canopy within our city by your house. It's going to reduce cooling in the summertime. It's going to prevent shade when you're out on walks with your pet. So the concrete's not going to be as hot as versus there's no shade. Can you tell us a little bit more why that it's important to have that tree canopy?

SPEAKER_01 9:20

Yeah, I think Shelby might actually be able to speak to this point with some of the work that she's been doing with Richmond.

SPEAKER_02 9:25

Yeah. So tree canopy is really, really important. Um, a lot of people don't realize that it does bring not only safety, but also a lot of biodiversity with species. Um, also, it just provides clean air quality. Um, trees are one of the biggest contributors that help um kind of take away from any, you know, carbon dioxide. Um, it makes a big difference. I do, I would say as well with the cooling, that's the biggest thing. You could stand on a pavement, there could be no trees down the entire sidewalk, and you're just like, man, it's really hot. Um, and it is because the trees provide such so much, honestly.

SPEAKER_04 10:03

And I think uh building off that a little bit, that uh one goal is that um trees are are more than just something pretty to look at. Like they are not just aesthetic or nice to have around. They're actually um we need them in our urban environments. We have way hotter temperatures. Um, some of the work that was done back in 2021 looking at or in 2022, I think, and um Thomas can correct me if I'm wrong on the dates, but uh a haze arboretum was 20 degrees cooler on the same day than downtown. So it affects livability. People don't want to be downtown or in the parks or walking down the sidewalk if it is 20 degrees hotter than it is where somewhere where it's shaded. Um so that's a really big important reason why, like Shelby said, but in order to do that, we have to start looking um at trees as more than just optional, but part of the infrastructure of a city and um planning and manage managing them accordingly. So um we know that that trees have a lifespan. And like I was saying, we want to optimize that in these harsh environments and get as many years of ecosystem services back as we can for that investment. So it's really um starting to view it as an asset that the city is managing rather than just an optional aesthetic benefit. Um I think that's fundamentally a different way to look at trees. And it's important for us in urban environments to start doing that. Um and then one other point that Shelby brought up was biodiversity, and that's something that this inventory has uh shown us that I mean we knew, but now we have the numbers to back it up, that maples create 32 percent of the trees that were inventoried in Richmond, um, followed by crab apples and calorie pears. So uh we have a lot of work to do when it comes to the I mean, but it's an opportunity and something hopeful that we have 3,500 planting spots that we've identified and we know that we need to be planting more diverse species to protect against um like be more resilient in the future.

SPEAKER_01 12:42

Yeah, I was just gonna ask that question, you know, what what are the benefits of having more diversity within the canopy?

SPEAKER_04 12:49

Do you want me to answer it? Okay. Feel free to jump in. Um I think a good example of this is to look back in our past. So Richmond had a lot of ashtrees, and Emerald Ashborg came through and wiped them all out. So uh we don't really have the historical data to know for sure that these 3,500 planting spaces were all ashtries. But I'm guessing that quite a few of them were, we've lost um a huge population of ashes. I thought what was interesting, there are still 168 ash trees that were inventoried, and um 68% of them were poor or dead. We want to be able to prevent things like that from happening in the future. And right now we're over-reliant on maples. So if there was something that came through that was attacking maples, then we would lose another, you know, a third of our canopy.

SPEAKER_01 13:49

And it's worth noting that there are current pest species that are known to use maples as a host plant. And those are they're around. They're spread throughout the United States. Currently, different populations are being controlled in different areas, but they continue to be introduced to the United States from different areas and continue to spread. So those are the types of things that we need to help prepare for so that we don't get into a situation where 30% of our trees could die in a short period of time.

SPEAKER_03 14:19

That's interesting to know that, you know. I I didn't realize that we had lost that many ash trees. Um, and then I didn't realize, you know, the highest percentage of trees that we have

Trees As City Infrastructure

SPEAKER_03 14:33

is maple trees and how important that biodiversity is until I came to your guys' task force meeting. Um, so I I've learned a lot. Um another question that I have is how will residents actually see the impact of this work? I know we are in the beginning phases, but long term, what is the goal?

SPEAKER_01 14:55

Yeah, and actually before we get to that question, I sorry, I wanted to tack on a little bit more to what uh Laura had said earlier about viewing trees as infrastructure. I think that that is actually one good answer to that question is that helping to shape the public perception that trees are not something that are optional. They are going to be providing X, Y, and Z benefits and help kind of spread the message and start some education initiatives related to that. But just speaking to the economic impact that trees currently have in the city of Richmond right now, our complete inventory, the the 9,000, just over 9,000 tree points, are currently providing a valuation of $30 million to the city. So if you were to replace the canopy that we inventoried and have to go through the process process of replacing it, that would be around $30 million that would be invested. So we currently have an asset that has a value attached to it. So we need to both continue to build and protect that asset while also working to shape how that asset is viewed in the future and how it's being managed. So there's a couple a couple different things that we're doing right now. And then speaking again to the ecosystem benefits, that was something that Laura had introduced, speaking of the heat island effect, being able to reduce the overall heat, uh, being help helping to prevent stormwater runoff by being able to absorb some of that excess water, preventing it from going into the systems that it has to rely on that are man-made. The canopy that exists right now and over the next 20 years is going to provide over a million and a half dollars worth of those services. So it's gonna remove carbon dioxide and other major pollutants from the air. It's going to be diverting that water from our stormwater system, and it's going to be providing that million and a half dollars worth of services. Those are a little bit harder to calculate and get a concept of how that's actually going to be saving money, but these are values that these trees are providing aside from just their overall valuation.

SPEAKER_03 16:57

And kind of going back to talking about education in the task force meeting, um, that's one thing that you know we would like to get out to the residents is that education on what is a good tree to plant or during infrastructure when we have developers coming in and they want to put landscaping in. I know you mentioned this. Um, you know, let's talk about them. Like, hey, we don't want you to plant these trees because of this reason, you know, the best tree would be this tree for that area. I know in um Reefston neighborhood, a lot of trees were planted many, many years ago that are not fit for that neighborhood. They are starting to raise the sidewalk um like four inches, two inches. And so knowing that information and having that knowledge when developers are coming in, it's gonna be not just beneficial for us, but also them. They're gonna have less damage to repair if they planted the wrong tree and it starts lifting up their concrete or their their pavement in the parking lot.

SPEAKER_01 18:07

Yeah, Laura, do you want to talk to that? We have some some exciting things.

SPEAKER_04 18:11

Yeah, well, um we'll try to get to all that. I do want to kind of get back to uh I think it'll kind of sum it all up. But um two of the goals that you mentioned. Um I think that we touched on one earlier, but more like better proactive management of the trees themselves, I think is really important. We um would hope to be able to move from a more reactive management of the trees to now that we know, then eventually we get the work a little like we have a backlog of maintenance that needs to be taken care of that's been shown through this inventory. But once we get that caught up, um that we'll be able to be on more of a proactive. So I think that is one. And then touching to the development and just from a bigger picture perspective, I think that a goal um is for urban forestry and trees to become part of the conversation from the beginning instead of just an afterthought. Um, and that is something that w a lot of municipalities deal with all over the country, but a lot of problems that we deal with with the improper tree selection for the, you know, like too big of a tree for too small of a tree lawn, um, like getting ahead of those issues from the beginning. And then there's so many different creative solutions that people are finding to be able to better incorporate trees with infrastructure. Um, so I think it long-term goal, you know, we're ha we're starting to have these strategic planning conversations around trees. Um, but that would probably be my number one is for then for urban forestry to become part of the conversation from the beginning instead of waiting until the end.

SPEAKER_03 20:03

You know, and that was another thing I wanted to talk about is why is it important to treat trees as part of the city infrastructure, but you really hit the nail on the head with that, you know, you know, talking about planting a tree too big for tree, would you call it tree lawn or tree space?

SPEAKER_04 20:19

Yes. There's a lot of different the right-way strip, parkway strip, um, tree lawn, there's the space between the road and the sidewalk.

SPEAKER_03 20:29

And then um kind of still piggybacking on the education about how to care for the tree and pruning. So if if we were able to kind of get that information out on social media or, you know, do a little story arc, um, you know, these are the trees that we need for biodiversity. This is how you want to kind of start pruning a tree to train a tree, um, so that we're not having those issues where we have, I don't know what the correct term is, but I would say like stray limbs

Biodiversity And Pest Risk

SPEAKER_03 21:03

that start to get too big. And then when we have a windstorm, then they fall, they could possibly fall on your house or on a vehicle or on your fence. And so that's just gonna cause even more problems if if we don't know how to properly take care of a tree that we wanted to plant in our yard. And also knowing, I guess, the roots, because we have under underground utilities that we have to watch for as well. So knowing what tree to plant, I think is important. Um so kind of going on to the urban green governance with Indiana University McKinney Climate Fellow Shelby. Um, can you tell us a little bit what is the urban green governance in a simple term?

SPEAKER_02 21:47

Yeah, so the urban green governance in a simple term, I would say it pretty much will help cities with an urban management plan. Well, for instance, Richmond, you know, we need a urban management plan, urban forestry management plan. So pretty much this kind of helps students come in, um, you know, help out not only the city, but also like their self professionally, personally. Um, and it's nice having like an outside look coming into a city, you know, I can see everything that maybe citizens might not see or, you know, citizens can help me see things I won't see. So I think really in simple terms, it's just a cohort to help give a city what they need, um, but also to help the student.

SPEAKER_03 22:37

So you guys actually did this was I think it was in 2024 and we're able to plant uh was it a hundred trees throughout the city that needed that can tree canopy.

SPEAKER_01 22:51

Yeah so in 2024 we went through the urban green infrastructure program. So it's slightly different than the urban green governance program that Shelby just described. But the main objective of that program was to actually come in, do some analysis on the land cover classification. So what that is is just looking at the different types of things that the land has so water, grass and low-lying vegetation, impervious surfaces such as roofs of buildings, concrete, sidewalks, roadways, tree canopy that was one of the main categories, and then bare soil. So we we based this analysis um sorry we received this analysis as part of the grant program. And then that analysis was used as well as some sociodemographic variables such as educational attainment, average income, ethnicity, and those were scored separately based on census tracts and then a um what is called our priority planting classification. So just looking at where we can actually plant trees in the different areas that don't already have tree canopy, don't have impervious surfaces, so looking at the low-lying vegetation and telling us where we can plant trees and where they're needed at. So then we refine that a little bit further by zooming into one of the areas that we found to be really high need and we planted those hundred trees.

SPEAKER_03 24:19

Yeah so you guys actually had a really good turnout too with the volunteers I was there helping to plant trees and I'm thinking it's just dig a hole and put it in and put the soil back. No you wanted to kind of create like um like a mound around that tree to make sure. I I don't know what the correct information is.

SPEAKER_04 24:41

I know you're our certified arborist so why do we want to when we plant a tree to put that mound over it well so I will highlight briefly um on proper planting and the number one most important thing is actually not planting the tree too deep. So a tree should never look like a telephone pole coming out of the ground where it's just straight trees naturally have a flare at the bottom and as uh the tree grows you want that flare to be exposed. So you want trees to get wider and thicker and bigger at the base. That's very normal that develops to help the tree in high wind events so those are like structural roots that are stabilizing the tree and not a bad thing at all. What is a bad thing though is when you pile mulch up against the trunk of the tree. That's called volcano mulching and it is very bad. So all of that mulch will just become wet and moist and decompose over time and become dirt and start to make the trunk damp and moldy and start to decay it. And also it doesn't give the tree the ability to grow those structural roots that are going to help it withstand those really strong wind events. So having the tree at the proper depth and then monitoring that depth over time because when you dig a hole and you plant a tree a lot of times it could look right at the time of planting but then it rains and the ground settles and you mulch it and you pull grass clippings on it and the year later you come back and that root flare could be buried again. So you have to uncover it. But that's probably the number one I'd say most important tip and that's kind of to uh make sure that you don't plant it too deep expose the root flare and then don't volcano mulch it.

SPEAKER_03 26:41

Okay. So I had that backwards it's not vocal volcano mulching. So I think what I was remembering was she was showing us that and maybe that's why I thought that's why you were to do it. But that was two years ago guys.

SPEAKER_01 26:54

So yeah you'll you'll see a lot of trees have those volcano mulches. And actually the kind of the technique to help prevent that while still mulching around the base of the tree preventing the weeds is to create a ring. So you you you can have a bit of a mound, not too much, you know only a couple inches so that you can keep those weeds

Dollars Saved And Smarter Planting

SPEAKER_01 27:13

down but then create a separate uh donut site type of shape inside um to keep the mulch away from that root flare.

SPEAKER_03 27:21

Okay, so around the trunk keep like a donut shape. Okay, got it.

SPEAKER_04 27:25

And um just to touch on the other thing that you asked about pruning um that's something that you know like now we know we have a lot of young trees and we would love to get to the point where we had some, you know, like a dedicated volunteer group that was trained in young tree structure pruning that could help us tackle um you know some of these young like tree preventative types of trainings that we can do for pruning. But the number one most important thing is making sure the urban trees have one main central leader. So like one main trunk going up with branches that kind of ladder off of that. But those how the branches are attached to that one main trunk is what gives them stability. So if you have a whole bunch you know three or four or five or six different trunks all coming in there um kind of all come down to a point and there's not very good attachments on it, that's what makes trees more instable and prone to failure.

SPEAKER_03 28:33

And I can see that happening happening a lot especially with like let's say there's a tree in the neighbor's yard but they have a bunch of branches hanging in your yard well I I know you're allowed to cut if it's hanging over your property you can cut on those branches but saying if they cut all the way up then it can make it unstable to where it'll start leaning more one way, right?

SPEAKER_04 28:59

Yeah there are a lot of different things that it can that it will affect a mature tree if you do like so another example that is used often and um is like clear cutting or removing you know part of a forest. Say there's a big tree but there's maybe 20 feet that you was all forested and then it's not. So that even that tree that has grown up with the protection of all the other trees on one side, once you remove that, it's going to be way more likely to fail. So same with roots and cutting too close to roots or trenching your roots. Like there are um ways, formulas that you can use that tell you how far away from the trunk that you should stay to prevent cutting some of those structural roots that are gonna just if they if you cut the roots then the tree's gonna fall. So uh going back to the planning conversation, I think that these are some of the goals that you know we can start better by knowing what we have and coordinating projects, working with contractors and utilities that you know we can hope to avoid more of these issues, which I think in the past year we've had some good examples of successes for that. So and then I also just wanted to add I don't think we've really like specifically talked about where the funding for this grant and the tree inventory came from. But it was all federal money that was given to the state. So the state was given about four million dollars to disperse two communities and it was all zero match. So um there was no financial match and there was not even a labor match to this grant and um the inventory was the biggest component of it but we also planted another hundred trees over two years with this grant and then it focused on trying to develop the um workforce and this the city staff responsible for managing this and trying to get more certified arborists and um people qualified to have the skills and knowledge to feel empowered to be able to make these good printing and management decisions.

SPEAKER_03 31:30

And talking about a grant I know I always see a lot of negative things about like oh that's tax dollars. It wasn't local tax dollars but yes it was tax dollars in the end but when you're thinking about four million dollars in the whole entire state of Indiana, you know we were lucky to be able to get that grant because I'm sure not every community received that grant, correct?

SPEAKER_04 31:56

Correct. We actually applied um there was a federal call for the grant that we applied for and did not receive and then we applied for the first round of funding through the state and did not receive any funding. It wasn't until after 24

IU Partnership And Targeted Planting

SPEAKER_04 32:12

2024 with IU and ERI and having the priority planting plan that was their biggest cr critique on our grant feedback was that we didn't have a plan for planting. So the IU ERI piece really gave us that missing piece of one of the pieces um so then we applied again in 2024 and um received $168,000 to complete all of this work and the inventory is about 112 I believe of it.

SPEAKER_03 32:47

And so that'll kind of tie into why not our community yes it's tax dollars but it's not local tax dollars being used. So why not not why not us? You know I I always hear a lot or see a lot of people kind of talking negatively but if it's not us, it's gonna be another community that's gonna be um improving their urban forestry and we should be able to do that as well.

SPEAKER_04 33:15

And I think that also brings up a good point that through these this whole process over the past three or four years, we've actually gotten to know who those other communities are and we work with them on a regular basis through the both of the cohorts as well as um the Indiana Community Forestry Council. I mean we we know who our partners are in the state we have friends in Evansville and Terre Haute and Bloomington and Goshen and West Lafayette and the Greater Chicago region, a lot of people in Indianapolis and when we have questions and we're dealing with things we are developing a network of people throughout the state that we can reach out to and collaborate with on this so does this kind of tie in like how did the partnership with Indiana University and the McKinney Climate Fellow come about was when you applied before 2024 did you kind of hear about Indiana University's McKinney Climate Fellow?

SPEAKER_01 34:16

So I think I might be able to speak a little bit on that. I'm by no means the expert on IU partnership with Richmond but it goes back earlier actually to climate action planning work.

SPEAKER_00 34:27

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 34:27

So Alison Zadel has been instrumental in helping the city receive um grant dollars in the past and was one of the folks who was involved with getting partnered with IU's ERI initially for

Planting Depth Pruning And Mulch Myths

SPEAKER_01 34:41

some of the different cohorts related to climate action planning. And so with that already established relationship and the trust that they had placed in Richmond and the outcomes that had come from those former grant programs we decided to pursue the grant program related to the urban green infrastructure in 2024.

SPEAKER_03 35:00

Okay. And then what is the and so Shelby I think you'll be able to answer this. What is the intern's role? What is your role in this project?

SPEAKER_02 35:11

Yeah so my role is like a facilitator so I will take whatever feedback that the um community members are giving and I will take that into account as long as well as things that I find looking at data like from the urban infrastructure that they had in 2024, um having these awesome uh professionals like Thomas and Laura, you know, giving me insight on not only just Richmond, but just in general because then I can take that back into my community or another community I go into. But it I'm really just a facilitator. I just am here to help really everyone and the community.

SPEAKER_03 35:51

And so at the end of this um we're going to have a management plan, correct?

SPEAKER_02 35:57

Yes, correct.

SPEAKER_03 35:58

Got it. And then um why is this kind of university partnership valuable for the city? Do you want to answer that Thomas?

SPEAKER_01 36:07

I think I can take some of it um I think as Shelby indicated there are a lot of things a lot of perspectives that can be gained from coming from what outside of a community and helping to facilitate some of the conversations that need to be had within that community. A lot of what Shelby is doing is organizing we've we've referenced it already this task force is made up of about 14 different um groups in town about 20 folks are on that task force and it's really hyper focused at um diving into what the different aspects of our management plan need to be. So I would say that there's a component that is workforce that we simply don't have the workforce developed at the moment. So having these partnerships allows us to still continue to progress in some of the ways that we need to progress to help build our urban forestry program.

SPEAKER_03 37:03

Okay and then how does this fit into Richmond's long-term sustainability goals in preparation for doing this management plan I wanted to highlight a big win that the Street Tree Commission had this year and that was that we just adopted a new vision statement and I think the and founding principles behind that vision statement too.

SPEAKER_04 37:27

So I I think that at least for um because I'd like to remind everyone Richmond does have an active Street Tree Commission that has representation from both residents and appointees and city staff and there's 11 people on there and so we have a lot of renewed enthusiasm on the commission and it's really great and exciting but trying to kind of at least come up with what we foresee um and want for the future of Richmond's urban forest and that is to be able to plan and fund and manage the diversity, the ecological diversity that we talked about and also to be able to provide these benefits for neighborhoods across the whole city because I think that that's something that this analysis is going to allow us to really look at is making sure that all parts of Richmond are getting trees planted and trees taken care of if they have dangerous trees and that's kind of one of our other big goals. So a more I guess you'd say equitable urban forest I think would be uh a goal. Yeah I'd agree.

SPEAKER_01 38:50

And um there are explicit um metrics within the climate action plan that deal with tree canopy or just deal with the built environment the natural environment and there are quite a few um subcategories that our management plan will help to address some of those lingering questions that the climate action plan posed.

SPEAKER_03 39:10

Okay. And then my last question so this will be a good one for you guys to kind of go out with a bang. What should residents know about why this work matters? Something that I mean so it's it's not just about passion, it's about what we need in this city.

SPEAKER_04 39:33

I would suggest for um everyone to go find a unshaded street in a neighborhood next to a school possibly when it's over 90 degrees out and take a walk and then go take a walk in one of our many fabulous green spaces that we have in Richmond and feel the difference. And I think that it's literally about being able to feel the impact that trees can have as far as temperature in an urban environment.

SPEAKER_02 40:06

I agree I think everyone has a right to clean air quality I think it's a big a big factor. I think there no one should not be able to have clean air um a safe you know place to sit under a tree read a book

Grant Funding Equity And What’s Next

SPEAKER_02 40:24

everyone deserves that. So I think it's very important.

SPEAKER_01 40:27

Yeah and I think there are a lot of really exciting projects happening in Richmond right now specifically downtown Richmond. And so centering helping to center our urban forest in that conversation is going to benefit everyone. It's gonna help add value to everything quite literally.

SPEAKER_04 40:42

Yeah for sure. And then I I'll just add one other thing on there we're surrounded by a lot of really great environmental partners too on both our east and our west and south and north I mean we have Red Tail and Cope and Hayes and the land trust the Whitewater Valley Land Trust so like Richmond is really the center kind of piece of a lot of these and um I think the the ecological diversity and the habitat that we're creating is important. And we can do that more so in parks than we can on streets in some aspects but we can do it but in streets by planting trees. So I think that it actually makes a difference for the future. I mean trees it's one of those um like we are literally trying to do something that we aren't going to necessarily have the benefits from but we're trying to plan just like the landfill plans for 50 or 100 years from now too it's that kind of thinking.

SPEAKER_03 41:48

That reminds me one of my favorite quotes something along the lines of the the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago but the second best time is now yeah and I just want to kind of say it's interesting that you said that when you guys kind of was doing the study back in was it 2122 um downtown was 20 degrees hotter than at Hayes Arboretum and then you mentioning to go out and take a walk where there's less trees and then go into one of the natural green spaces and take a walk and notice the difference. But I've actually when I was a a kid I would notice it uh not having AC in my grandpa's truck and we would be driving out in the country but we would be on a country road that had no trees and how hot the truck was but then we start going into the wooded area and you could just feel that coolness you know the temperature dropping you could feel that coolness.

SPEAKER_04 42:43

So it's actually at the task force meeting that was some a point that someone brought up she said it feels colder it feels cooler when we drive to the west side of Richmond and that was a comment. So we're trying to hopefully fix that disparity and make more places feel cooler.

SPEAKER_03 43:02

Well guys I want to thank you for coming on I've learned a lot more just from the task force meeting and I hope the community has as well will there be any surveys or community engagement with this?

SPEAKER_04 43:18

There will be future community engagement regarding um so I'm also in graduate school right now and we're gonna be looking at doing an update to the ordinance next year. And so there will be some community input um sessions and survey opportunities related to the ordinance update. So stay tuned for that and we'll make sure to keep everyone posted when we have more opportunities available.

SPEAKER_03 43:47

Okay. So guys thank you once again for joining me I really appreciate it. Any information you give me when the time is right we'll get that shared out to the community. Perfect thank you for having us and letting us talk about trees thanks. That's Inside Richmond the city's false make sure to join us next time