TECHNICAL ASSESSMENT - Laserfiche WebLink

92 | CITY OF PLEASANTON URBAN FOREST MASTER PLAN URBAN FOREST MANAGEMENT PRACTICES 1.2.2 Funding Pleasanton’s Future Urban Forest Goals Determining How to Achieve the City’s Canopy Cover Goal Pleasanton’s total canopy is currently averaging approximately 25% within the City’s urban boundary. While this is considered above average for a city that was historically in a grassland setting (Nowak and Greenfield 2020), the canopy cover is not evenly distributed and falls below 25% in 26 of the 77 residential neighborhoods (See Figure 2-3). Instead of setting a city-wide goal to increase canopy cover, Pleasanton plans to focus its resources into those areas with lower canopy cover and has set a goal to achieve 25% canopy cover across all neighborhoods over the next 25-years. This section highlights a management pathway the City can take to achieve the goal of having all neighborhoods within Pleasanton reach 25% canopy over the next 25 years. Approximately 6,300 new trees will need to be planted within those 26 residential neighborhoods that are lacking the target canopy cover level (See Table 2-6). In the recent tree inventory of publicly managed trees, only 1,106 vacant sites were identified as being readily available for planting in the 26 targeted neighborhoods, though there may be other potential available planting spaces for trees not yet identified in the City’s parks within these neighborhoods, which is discussed below. This leaves approximately 5,200 trees that will need new planting locations. Creating new tree wells in urban areas requires removing impermeable surfaces on public property and is often a long-term and costly planning effort. While there may be a few opportunities to increase the canopy cover on streets in these neighborhoods that currently have few street trees such as the western-most portion of West Las Positas Boulevard, most of the public land in Pleasanton is already developed for crucial city infrastructure, limiting the space that can be converted to a new tree site. These limitations on public land highlight the importance of residents and businesses planting and maintaining trees on their private properties. Private property trees will play an important role in achieving the City’s goal of getting targeted neighborhoods to reach 25% canopy cover in 25 years. Residential Tree Give-Away Program To incentivize and reduce the barrier of entry into tree ownership, Pleasanton will set out to create an annual tree give-away program where the City would purchase young trees/saplings to give out to its residents in targeted neighborhoods. The tree give-away program will help the City progress towards elevating targeted neighborhoods to reach canopy evenness with the rest of the City and build