City To Evaluate City-Owned Trees
Decatur Metro | July 27, 2017 | 10:00 amIf you start seeing Xs spray-painted on trees around town in the coming weeks, here’s what’s up according to the Decatur Focus…
City of Decatur arborist Kay Evanovich is working with the Urban Forestry Management Plan team to mark certain city-owned trees for either tree health care or removal as part of the city’s Urban Forestry Management
Plan.Using a tree risk management system known as ALARP (As Low as Reasonably Practical), which manages tree risks by reducing them to a level that demonstrates due diligence and a proactive approach, the team is able to assess trees and categorize them by their risk level.
Trees that are identified as high risk are being marked with an orange X for removal and moderate risk trees are wrapped with yellow caution tape to be pruned or treated.
The community can help by leaving flagging tape on trees so that crews can locate them.
Once all necessary trees are flagged the information at right will apply:
On streets that experience reduced canopy levels each spring, new trees will be planted through the Trees Atlanta planting program.
This has actually been going on for several months. I think they just included the code in Decatur Focus because people were asking what was going on with trees that were tagged with an orange X or yellow tape or whatever months ago. We’ve had four large oaks removed on our street (Fairview Ave.), the two most recent ones came down last week after being tagged 4 or 5 months ago.
Oops. Guess I should have said “evaluating”!
Does this apply to land owned by City Schools of Decatur?
Probably not. They may be doing their own independent evaluation, but the two entities would not overlap.
They were taken down to satisfy the builder/developer. A more pro-active approach is needed to counter balance the the faulty government policies of pushing pain on everyone. We need innovation rather than the carving up so no one has anything. Empowerment rather than equality of nothing.
http://www.tdag.org.uk/uploads/4/2/8/0/4280686/tdag_treesinthetownscape.pdf
While I recognize this is essentially trolling, our experience was that 3 of the 4 trees on our street (including two directly in front of our home) were clearly dying (several had dropped large limbs on cars or had a series of near misses), and Kay Evanovich came out in person to explain to us why the determination was made, show us the signs she was looking at and explain the plans. Then subsequently we also got to talk to the crews actually doing the removal work a few weeks before they did the job (though this was a coincidence as I happened to see them outside planning for the removals). We never felt steamrolled or bullied by the City. Quite the contrary. Felt like they went out of their way to help us and make sure we understood what was going on and why. And definitely got the sense that Ms. Evanovich wants to save as many tries as she can. Could not have been a more positive experience, and while part of me misses those trees, they had reached the end of their lives and I’m much happier with them coming down in a planned fashion, rather than damaging property or injuring someone.
Anyone know where I can get some orange spray paint?
I felt the need to like this more than once.
And the trees are all kept equal
By hatchet, axe and saw
“The Trees”
-Rush
We have a hackberry tree growing in between the roughly 6-foot wide (alleyway) space separating our fence and our neighbor’s fence, next to a bunch of ivy, and probably over the remains of Jimmy Hoffa. Is this a city-owned tree?