Elm Heights Neighborhood Urban Forest Management Plan

Sources: Bloomington Tree InveChris Walker, GIS Specialist, IU Bloomington;

Tree Canopy Cover and Diversity, Size, and Condition from The 2007 Street Tree InventoryIntroduction

In 2007, The City of Bloomington con-ducted a thorough inventory of the cities street trees.1 A “street trees” as defined by the Bloomington City Ordi-nance are “trees lying on the real estate owned or controlled by the City” with the exception of trees lying within park interiors. With shapefiles of Bloomington’s street trees and Bloomington’s distinct neighborhood associations a group of Indiana University’s Urban Forestry Manage-ment students were charged with de-veloping a tree management plan for the Elm Heights Neighborhood (highlighted in yellow). The President of the Elm Heights Neighborhood Asso-ciation, Ms. Jenny Southern, expressed interest in creating a plan which would address issues pertinant to the mem-bers of the association and improve communication with the Bloomington City Forester, Lee Huss. The difficulty would lie in discovering what informa-tion is pertinant to a neighborhood as-sociation as diverse and large as the Elm Heights neighborhood.

Tree Maintenance and Protection from Hazard Trees

Trees provide a large number of benefits to a community, but they can also cause serious damage. Dead or dying trees provide wildlife habitat, but they also cause power outages, prop-erty damage, and even death when trees fall unexpectedly. In Indiana, it is a duty for landowners to protect others from injury caused by trees in their yards.

Indiana law bases this decision on the case Valinet v. Eskew, 574 N.E.2d 283 (Ind. 1991). The Indi-ana Supreme Court found that a “possessor of land in an urban area was subject to liability, to persons … for physical harm resulting from his failure to exercise reasonable care to prevent an unreasonable risk of harm arising from the condition of trees on the land near the highway.” The court further held that a landowner had a “duty … to perform periodic inspections to be sure that the premises do not endanger those using the highway” (Scott 2006).3

Despite the overwhelming perception that the street trees in Elm Heights are in disrepair, the data indicates that the City of Bloomington is maintaining its street trees. Over 80% of street trees are not in any danger of encountering wires and the majority of street trees need no main-tenance at all. Survey results indicate that trees are not an issue when it comes to broken side-walks, rather, street crews have gotten behind in fixing aging sidewalks within this neighborhood. Lighting was also considered a hazard to be considered. Perhaps the city forester should con-sider training a larger number of trees above the light posts in Elm Heights than are currently trained.

From physical inspection it appears that the majority of hazardous trees are in private yards and therefore not within the city’s jurisdiction. Citizens should inventory their own trees for visible defects as listed in the table at right and contact a certified arborists for consultation on ques-tionable trees.4 Removal should be done with the necessary precautions and the help of trained personel. The City of Blooming-ton provides infor-mation on proper pruning and does not condone the use of “topping.” Rather the city en-courages resi-dents to prune trees back to a point at which weak branches connect with a strong leader branch.

Prepared By Courtney Bonney in association with Amy Countryman, Ted Derheimer, Phil Lincoln, and Mary Ruhter

Location & Demographics

Elm Heights Neighborhood is located in downtown Bloomington, Indiana and encom-passes approximately 340 acres (Indiana Geological Survey 2008). It is bounded to the north by 3rd Street, to the west by Washing-ton Street, spans eastward nearly to Mitchell Street, and southward to Weatherstone Lane. The neighborhood is one of the most established residential areas in Bloomington and contains Vintage Hill Historic District lo-cated along 1st Street from Woodlawn Avenue to Maxwell Lane.2 On the negative side, A significant portion of Elm Heights is within the boundary of IU and is very near the urban core of Bloomington. On the posi-tive side, Elm Heights includes two parks, Third Street Park and the Northern portion of Bryan Park. Third Street Park is used exten-sively by the Elm Heights Neighborhood.

Census block groups, a cluster of census blocks, were used to subdivide the Elm Heights into areas with which analysis could be performed based on demograghic data. Census blocks contain a range of popula-tions from 600 to 3000 people, optimally 1500. Subsections in the maps provided range from 498 people to 2239. Census blocks were insufficient in size to view over-all trends in tree care.

Survey Results

Association memebers were surveyed from 26 March 2008 through 7 April 2008 using SurveyMonkey.com. Of the 100 members contacted via e-mail, 33 completed the survey. Of those curveyed 88% were Residential Landowners, 9% were Rental Property Owners, and 3% were a combination of the two.

Rental Properties

Areas with high numbers of rental proper-ties are more likely to neglect tree canopy cover in both size and condition. As a neighborhood association, members can use premise liability and hazard trees to bring home owners and rental owners to-gether.

Use this information as well as other hazard tree resources to create a hazard tree workshop for rental property owners. Consult with a local arborist to get a day of free assessments. In many areas of Elm Heights’ tree canopy cover level is above and beyond the American Forests’ Urban Tree Canopy Cover (UTCC) Goals of 25 percent for an urban residential area.

The neighborhood association will benefit by the improved condition of the tree canopy cover. Both rental property owners and home owners benefit by pre-venting future premise liability litigation costs, while the neighborhood improves in property values and increased participa-tion of rental owners in tree related issues.

Tree Canopy CoverAn inventory of tree canopy cover bridges the divide be-tween street trees and private trees. In Elm Heights there are only 873 street trees, but tree canopy cover is greater than fifty percent. Elm Heights canopy cover was digitized from 2007 aerial pho-tography to be compared with American Forests Urban Tree Canopy Cover (UTCC) goals.

Street Tree Diversity & SizeOf Elm Heights streets trees only one genus is over popu-lated. Maples have been popular as street trees, but have weak limbs (Silver Maple) and are prone to pests such as the Asian Ambrosia Beetle; Creating a more di-verse street tree population would mean planting less Maples, Little Leaf Linden, Gingko, Crabapple, and Orna-mental Pears. Secondly, trees must be better managed to in-crease the number of trees which reach maturity

Condition of Street TreesOf the trees surveyed in 2007, 5% were in poor condi-tion, 24% in fair condition, and 42% in good condition. 26% were labeled as dead. Of these only 17% were marked for removal.

Size DistributionBased on these models of tree size city foresters plan for the planting of new trees and the maintenance of trees. Benefits of street trees are proportional to DBH; street tree benefits are greater in green areas.

Conclusion

Information gathered from both the survey and GIS were used to tailor a manage-ment plan toward the needs of the Elm Heights Neighborhood. Elm heights is a unique neighborhood association, it is one of the largest neighborhoods and has a diverse population; So large that it is difficult to conclude even the tree canopy cover goals. However it is clear that tree canopy is lacking in the northwest corner of the neighborhood, an area in which many people come to enjoy the out-doors, events, etc (Third Street Park and Bryan Park). This area is a juxtaposition of both good and poor traits for the encouragement of the urban forest. Tree canopy is more easily encouraged near established parks and green spaces; on the other hand, trees are often neglected on rental properties. In this lies an op-portunity for the Elm Heights Neighborhood association to focus its efforts in the northwest corner and by doing so increase the tree-related benefits (increased property values, storm water drainage, shade, etc.) to the entire neighborhood. Hazard liability appears to be a cost to the community, but it may be a boon. In making available the materials on premise liability the neighborhood may increase rental owner involvement and thus be able to build off of the adjacent parks’ green infra-structure. Through local action, specifi-cally neighborhood actions, Bloomington, IN can fully become Tree City, USA.

Planting

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

NO YES

Perc

ent o

f all

Stre

et Tr

ees

Street Trees Under Wires

0

50

100

150

200

250

Planting Site Large

Planting Site Medium

Planting Site Small

Nu

mb

er

of

Pla

nti

ng

Sp

ots

Planting Sites by Optimal Tree Size

In Elm Heights many private trees need to be removed in order to decrease the number of hazard trees. In order to maintain high tree canopy cover levels in Elm Heights trees need to be planted. Physical observations as well as the street tree inventory indicate that the majority of planting spots are located in tree lawns smaller than 4 feet. With this in mind it is doubtful that the City of Bloomington will be able to increase tree canopy cover in the Northwest corner of Elm Heights by planting street trees. In order to reach the 25% canopy cover goals for “urban residential” areas as set by American Forests private land-owners will need to plant street trees. The Elm Heights Neighborhood Association should, however, encourage the planting of trees in the Northwest corner to decrease any pos-sible inequalities among property owners in the entirety of Elm Heights.

1 Bloomington Street Tree Inventory, 2007. Chris Walker, GIS Specialist, City of Bloomington, Bloomington, IN. 2 Ruhter, Mary et. al., 2008. “Elm Heights Neighborhood Association Street Tree Managment Plan.” Indiana University-Bloomington. Bloomington, IN.

3 Beering, Peter and Scott, Judson, 2006. "Premises Liability and Your Trees." Vine and Branch, Inc. Website. Vine and Branch, Inc. 13pp. <http://www.vineandbranch.net/Premise_liability_4-9-07.pdf> 4 Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, and USDA Forest Service. 1996. “How to Recognize Hazardous Defects in Trees.” USDA Forest Service NA-FR-01-96. 20 pp.