Chris Fegley approached a young London plane tree living in rare conditions for South Allison Hill’s busy Derry Street—broad patch of exposed earth below, open sky with no utility wires above.
“This should be a really happy tree,” said Fegley, neighborhood revitalization manager for the Community Action Commission.
The contented tree is among thousands of Harrisburg’s “street trees” occupying public rights of way between sidewalks and roads. But this youthful tree also represents an unprecedented partnership of state and local entities, residents and nonprofits that all see trees as the shared answer to their distinctive challenges.
Under the canopy of the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources’ (DCNR’s) public-private TreeVitalize urban tree restoration program, a number of local entities have combined forces to count, plant and maintain trees in the city of Harrisburg.
Penn State is finalizing results of a citywide street tree inventory, conducted in summer 2013 by the Chesapeake Bay Foundation’s Pennsylvania chapter and funded, in part, by the Harrisburg Authority. DCNR is compiling data for a complete “tree canopy” assessment of every public and private tree seen from a bird’s-eye view. The Tri-County Community Action Commission’s ongoing work with South Allison Hill residents to plant and maintain trees kicked off with a tree planting in spring 2013 and will soon reach other neighborhoods.
Mature street trees offer measurable benefits in urban areas. Healthy trees boost property values, filter pollutants and reduce heating and cooling costs, according to the U.S. Forest Service. Tree-filled neighborhoods have less domestic violence. Shoppers in tree-lined commercial districts linger longer and spend more. Trees are so thirsty that 100 mature trees catch 77,000 gallons of rainwater a year.
“When you consider all those things they do, the benefits far outweigh the costs, but that’s not the general attitude,” said Ellen Roane, DCNR’s urban forestry program coordinator. “They’re viewed as a nicety, not a necessity.”
As the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency enforced municipal storm water management plans meant to prevent dirty city rainwater from coursing into rivers and the Chesapeake Bay, the Harrisburg Authority paid close attention to the city of Philadelphia’s “green control plan,” said Engineering Director Dave Stewart. Green control bypasses costly engineering projects in favor of tree plantings, rain barrels, green roofs and other natural water-management methods.
A similar approach in Harrisburg could serve the dual purpose of brightening neighborhoods and serving the authority’s needs, Stewart said. Big tunnels for capturing storm water “could address water quality issues, but the citizens wouldn’t see any benefits,” he said. “If we go this green approach, the city can see a lot of benefits.”
Urban trees don’t have the best reputation—the leaves, the heaving sidewalks, the storm damage—but in South Allison Hill, extensive meetings led by the Chesapeake Bay Foundation and Community Action Commission won enthusiastic converts who requested tree plantings in front of their properties.
In April 2013, the CAC led residents and volunteers in planting 23 trees along the streets of the city’s most diverse, most impoverished neighborhood, with funding help from Covanta Energy. They are London planes, a hybrid of sycamore and American elm. They are honey locust, Japanese tree lilac, red oak and non-fruiting versions of gingko and crab apples.
“Urban foresters stress the right tree for the right spot,” said Andrew Bliss, CBF’s grassroots coordinator. Height matters when utility lines dangle overhead. Sizeable trees need sidewalk openings of 30 square feet to collect adequate water.
Maintenance is so important that Fegley and other CAC staff took eight hours of tree-tending training, mandated for TreeVitalize grant recipients. Young trees, pruned properly, have a better chance of maturing into healthy trees. Regular watering—those green bags wrapped around tree trunks direct water straight to the root system—is crucial in the first two years.
“Getting people invested in helping with that early maintenance helps the trees get off to a good start,” said Roane.
The tree inventory cataloging the health and location of Harrisburg’s street trees—every single one, counted and assessed by Penn State Extension workers and CBF interns in summer 2013—lays the groundwork for planting and maintenance plans.
CAC will use inventory results to guide tree plantings elsewhere, including one planned for Uptown Harrisburg in spring 2014, said Fegley. The authority will overlay the results, expected before the end of 2013, on its storm water management problem areas to help target their greening efforts, said Stewart.
TreeVitalize has prompted initiatives in 150 to 200 Pennsylvania municipalities, said Roane.
“You have to know what you’ve got in order to manage,” she said. “The first step is to identify what’s there. What is the species mix? What are the age and size class? Are they mostly really, really old trees? Are they dying? What you want is a range of age classes and size classes, from young trees to mature trees, so they’re not all dying at once.”
In Harrisburg, the hope is that the city will someday have resources to contribute toward management—maybe hiring an urban forester, said Stewart.
Last spring’s planting could add a total of $260,000 to South Allison Hill property values, said Fegley. He marched to a spot near 13th and Berryhill streets being targeted for the fall tree planting—a massive stump heaved out of the sidewalk, covered in brush and trash, forcing pedestrians onto the busy road. Grinding stumps and smashing concrete are the most grueling tasks in tree plantings, but Fegley seemed to relish the idea of slaying this dragon and planting a fresh, young tree in its place.
“The community would like very much to walk down the sidewalk,” he said.
