In 2018, the city set aside $800,000 of its Bicentennial Bonds project to plant trees throughout Bloomington.
So, when the city announced a plan in February to plant 304 new trees, many asked if the city was really spending $800,000 for 300 new trees -- a little more than $2,600 per tree.
The short answer is no.
“This is an initial phase to kind of see how this goes and see how we can adjust this in the future and use it to plant more trees in other parts of the city,” said Erin Hatch, Bloomington’s urban forester.
She’s responsible for overseeing the project.
The cost of this initial phase is roughly $182,000. That works out to a little under $600 per tree and includes the purchase, planting and two follow-up visits by Davey Resource Group.
The city contracted with Davey in 2018 for a city-wide tree inventory that identified planting sites based on socio-economic characteristics.
“We’re looking at it from a kind of environmental justice lens,” Hatch said. “So for this project, we looked at median income and also percentage of non-white individuals within different geographies within the city.”
What the city is aiming for is called an equitable tree canopy.
“There’s definitely a big push for urban forests to focus on equitable planting, especially because they serve urban communities,” Hatch said. “There tends to be some drastic differences on where those canopies are located.”
Sarah Mincy is the managing director of the Environmental Resilience Institute at IU. She said tree inequity in cities is connected to systemic racism in housing dating back to the 1930s when racial covenants and redlining limited where minorities could live.
“We know that inequities in tree canopy cover mean that particular kinds of groups of people may not have access to all of those ecosystem services that other groups of people have,” Mincy said. “So, we’re concerned about trying to make sure everyone has access to those benefits.”
The benefits of tree canopy are wide-ranging. Trees improve air quality, collect carbon dioxide, aid in stormwater management, and add to the value of a property.
“Trees provide shade and wind blocks to homes, so that means we’re spending usually less money on our air conditioning and heating, which ends up obviously helping individuals in terms of money they have to spend,” Mincy said.
The 2019 tree canopy survey by Davey divided the city into five land cover classifications – tree canopy, grass/low lying vegetation, impervious surfaces, bare soil and open water. The report showed the city’s tree canopy in 2018 was 38%, with an estimated area of another 22% of the city available for tree planting.
Overlaying that data with the desire for equity in where to plant the trees, the city identified four project areas – two covering neighborhoods on the east side, one covering nine neighborhoods in the north and near-west side and one covering 10 neighborhoods on the city’s south side.
But not all are in the lower income or underserved areas of the city.
“I think it’s relevant for people to know that one of the constraints on an urban forester is actually having viable planting locations,” Mincy said. “It often ends up knocking out some communities that we might rather be planting in.”
The city can only plant in public right-of-ways, which is the land between a sidewalk and the road or, if there is no sidewalk, a pre-determined width of land bordering the road.
Mincy said Bloomington and Indianapolis are among the first cities in the state to address tree equity and praised the work Hatch has done.
“We are on the cutting edge to be doing the kind of analysis that has been done by our city’s urban forester, looking very, very carefully at many different factors that go into determining where we need to be planting trees,” she said.
Hatch says trees will begin being planted this month and in May for a majority of the project area, with another planting session scheduled for October and November.
The city’s contract with Davey Resource Group runs through the spring of 2024, when the company should complete the last of two post-planting visits on the trees.
After that?
“They’re considered city trees, so any sort of associated maintenance such as removals that might need to happen if those trees become sick and die, that’d be the city’s responsibility,” Hatch said.
On top of the $182,000 contract with Davey, the city spent another $13,000 on signage, postcards and other pre-planting dealings with residents, bringing the total cost of the project to $195,000.
So what will the Hatch do with the remaining $600,000 from the bicentennial bond?
“Plant more trees, hopefully, in other parts of the city,” she said.
Which is what you would expect from the state’s first designated Tree City.
