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- What/where?
As you gather support for developing your plan, you will need to indicate what the overall scope of the plan will be. More to the point, what planning scope is likely to be approved and funded? Depending on your level of support, it may be necessary to take an incremental approach rather than going for the most comprehensive plan possible in the first attempt.
One important component of scope is the "where" - what portions of the urban forest will be included in the plan? The plan may apply only to certain geographic areas (e.g., downtown area) or to only certain classes of trees (e.g., street trees only; city trees only as opposed to public and private trees).
Especially for cities and counties, the UFMP will be only one of many plans that may overlap and interact to varying degrees. These interactions should be considered when developing the scope as discussed below.
Planning ScopeTrees included in an urban forest management plan may include:
- planted horticultural trees in urbanized settings (most trees in developed areas)
- retained native trees in urbanized settings
- native trees in relatively undisturbed settings (open space lands, etc.)
Different types of management actions and monitoring methods may be appropriate for these various tree classes.
In addition most city or county urban forests include trees managed by multiple entities. These may include:- municipal trees – trees under city/county care in parks, open space lands, street rights-of-way, other city owned properties
- other publicly owned/managed trees – trees on properties owned or managed by other public entities such as school districts, water districts, etc.
- privately owned/managed trees – trees managed by:
businesses in commercial areas (parking lots, commercial building complexes),
private or commercial landowners in residential areas (single and multifamily housing) or
HOAs in dedicated open space areas;
private or commercial landowners in undeveloped areas that may be subject to future development.
Note that some of these trees may have been planted as a condition of plan approval.
Most municipal urban forest management plans address municipal trees. Whether other trees in the jurisdiction (other public agency trees, private trees) are addressed will depend on the local context. It may or may not be practical or desirable to include non-municipal trees depending on local politics, preferences, and conditions. Different tools will apply to management of trees that a municipality has direct control over vs. those owned and managed by other entities.
Urban forest management plans will differ widely between communities because they reflect and respond to the local context. The evolution of the local urban forest is shaped by community history, and an urban forest management plan needs to respond to conditions that exist or can be anticipated at the time the plan is developed. As the community and its urban forest continue to evolve over time, the management plan may need to be updated, revised, or replaced.
Site–level plansIndividual, site–level urban forest management plans can be developed that address the management of the urban forest in areas such as college campuses, office parks, historical sites, botanical gardens, recreation areas, or other large properties that contain significant amounts of tree canopy. Such plans may also be developed within the context of a larger-scale city or regional plan. In some cases, they may be subject to review and/or approval by local governments.
A site level plan can be less complex than a city or county plan. Because site-level plans typically cover an area much smaller than a city or county, there is less overall variability across the site and potentially a smaller range of issues that need to be addressed in the plan. In addition, if the site is owned and/or managed by a single entity, the process for making decisions and obtaining necessary resources to execute the plan may be simpler. In sites that have a single ownership, it may be more practical to address all site trees in the plan, even if they are distributed across several categories.
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