SUBJECT:      Liquidambar Street Tree Removal Criteria – Study Issue Follow-up

REPORT IN BRIEF

On August 9, 2005, City Council acted on RTC 05-228 – Liquidambar Street Trees – Nuisance Fruit Problem Study Issue, directing staff to return to Council with criteria to determine the specific circumstances under which to allow individual property owners to remove any size City Liquidambar street tree adjacent to their property and replace the tree with an approved alternative species.  The alternate species is to be planted as a thirty-six inch boxed sized tree with all expenses paid by the property owner.  The City Council also directed the following:

·         Determine the number of Liquidambar street trees the City should allow to be removed under these circumstances each year

·         Determine the number of Liquidambar tree removals allowed if additional funds become available in the future.

·         Identify Liquidambar street tree removal as an annual budget issue.

·         Consider criteria to fund removals for citizens who cannot afford to have their tree(s) removed at their expense.

Staff recommends an annual rate of removal of 100 Liquidambar trees per year.  This rate is exclusive of Liquidambar street trees that must be removed by the City because of damage, disease or other hazardous conditions.  If the City Council decides in the future to fund the removal of non-hazardous Liquidambar street trees, staff recommends that the total number be limited to one hundred (exclusive of the number of hazardous tree removals.)  Since the City Council is not suggesting City Funding at this time, staff is also recommending that any subsidy for removal of Liquidambar trees by those not able to afford the removal be discussed as part of the budget process when funding is available.

The removal criteria recommended by staff allows for one of every ten Liquidambar trees in a city block to be removed per year but disallowing two adjacent Liquidambar trees to be removed in the same year.   Property owners must request and be issued a Street Tree Work Permit authorized and issued by the Superintendent of Trees and Landscaping.  Additionally, property owners must show proof of home­owners insurance that would cover personal injury or property damage directly related to the approved Liquidambar street tree removal and replacement work.  The property owner must also sign a release holding harmless the City of Sunnyvale from any liability.  The Tree Work Permit will require property owners to hire a qualified contractor to perform the Liquid­ambar tree removal and alternative tree species replacement.

The replacement tree species shall be determined by the City with the species selected to be the same for all replacements for a particular block.  Where Liquidambar street trees have been previously replaced by the City, the replacement species by property owner is to conform to the existing, established alternate species for that particular block.

BACKGROUND

·         Determine the number of Liquidambar street trees the City should allow to be removed under these circumstances each year

·         Determine the number of Liquidambar tree removals allowed if additional funds become available in the future.

·         Identify Liquidambar street tree removal as an annual budget issue.

·         Consider criteria to fund removals for citizens who cannot afford to have their tree(s) removed at their expense.

EXISTING POLICY

City Policy for street tree removal is set forth in Sunnyvale Municipal Code Chapter 13.16.060. Permit Required (See Attachment A); and

Chapter 13.16.080. Removal of Damaged Trees (See Attach­ment B.)  Street trees that become damaged or destroyed from any cause which in the opinion of the superintendent results in such a tree becoming an immediate threat to the safety of life or property shall be removed by the City.

  
DISCUSSION

Staff has drafted for Council consideration specific criteria (Attachment C) for the removal of the Liquidambar styraciflua – American Sweetgum species from City street tree inventory. 

Removal Criteria

There should be several standard requirements for Liquidambar street tree removal.  First, there needs to be a tree work permit issued.  Per Sunnyvale Municipal Code (SMC) Chapter 13.16.060 – Permits required (See Attachment A): city trees can be planted, maintained or removed with a permit issued by the Superintendent of Trees and Landscaping.  The permit specifies conditions  required by the Superintendent.   Currently there is no fee required for a tree work permit.  Chapter 13.16.060 does not specify who can apply to perform work on a city street tree.  Therefore, under the current policy anyone can request a permit to work on or remove a city street tree, even a property owner next door to the tree.  Staff has historically only accepted permit requests from property owners where trees were located along the frontage of their property. This has avoided confusion and limited the work done on trees without the adjacent property owner’s knowledge and consent.

Secondly, the property owner should be held responsi­ble to ensure protection to the public from injury and property damage during removal of the tree.  The removal of a large mature tree is a hazardous operation and must be done by qualified individu­als.  The risk of personal injury and property damage needs to be minimized.  The work permit should require the property owner to assume the liability for the tree removal and remedy any damage or injury caused by the removal operations.  The City should have evidence of insurance coverage for such liability.  In addition, the property owner must also sign a release holding harmless the City of Sunnyvale from any liability. Also, the property owner needs to hire a qualified contractor with the appropriate liability and property damage insurance coverage.  Such contractors typically hold either a C-27 ‘Landscape Contractor’ or limited specialty D-49 ‘Tree Service’ California contractor’s license.

Staff recommends the annual removal quantity be one hundred Liquidambar street trees per year.  Staff also recommends that this quantity be exclusive of hazardous Liquidambar trees requiring removal by the City.  With the relative high cost of the removal of a mature tree and its replacement with the boxed nursery tree, staff anticipates that requests for Liquidambar tree removal at owner’s expense will be under one hundred trees per year. 

To avoid the denuding of a particular street, staff recommends that not more than one Liquidambar per ten Liquidambar street trees per block be removed per year.  On street blocks where more than one property owner applies to remove a Liquidambar tree and the number of trees on the block will not allow multiple removals, a priority removal list would be established which would be listed for removal according to date and time of the application.  Also to maintain aesthetic continuity,  removals on adjoining properties should not be allowed in any single year.  For such instances the priority would be granted according to date and time of the application; the earliest applicant would be allowed the current year, the later applicant the following year. 

For Liquidambar tree removal purposes, a block would be considered street segments from one cross street to the next cross street.  Typically these are in the same number range ie. 100, 200, 300 etc. but on side or connecting secondary streets where corner lots are addressed on the fronting street, the side street may not have an address.  For these situations the block would still be defined as the segment between cross streets.

Tree Replacement

Any tree species selection should be determined by the City.  The species should be uniform per street and of size commensurate with the Liquidambar genus.  Keeping the species uniform for a street will make the maintenance effort uniform for the street.  With all trees on a street the same species, the pruning maintenance will be more efficient.  Also keeping species uniform is more aesthetically pleasing than having a variety of species of differing growth habits. 

There are several species that have been selected as replacement species for Liquidambar sytraciflua – American Sweetgum.  From the early 1980’s, Liquid­ambar street trees requiring removal have not been replaced with the same species, with a few excep­tions.  Alternate species include:

Acer macrophyllum – Big Leaf Maple

Acer platanoides – Norway Maple

Acer pseudoplatanus – Sycamore Maple

Acer rubrum – Red Maple

Fagus sylvatica – European Beech

Fraxinus americana – White Ash

Fraxinus pennsylvanica – Green Ash

Liquidambar styraciflua ‘Rotundiloba’ – Roundleaf Sweet Gum (fruitless variety)

Liriodendron tulipifera – Tulip Tree

Platanus acerifolia – London Plane, Sycamore

Pyrus calleryana – Ornamental Pear

Quercus coccinea – Scarlet Oak

Quercus kelloggii – California Black Oak

Quercus shumardi - Shumardi Oak

Quercus virginiana – Southern Live Oak (evergreen species)

Ulmus ‘Pioneer’ – Pioneer Elm

Many streets that have had Liquidambars removed have been replanted with specific alternate species.  The new species is the new signature tree for the block.  Staff recommends, on those blocks with an existing alternate tree species for Liquidambars, the replacement species for the Liquidambars removed by the property owners to be that alternate species.  For those Liquidambar streets without a new alternative replacement species, the first replacement tree species planted will set the replacement species for the remainder of the Liquidambar trees replaced either by City or private property owner for that block.

There are some sites that should not have a large replacement tree in the parkway planter area.  Such sites are usually either too narrow in width or length to support a genetically large replacement tree species.   For those sites, the replacement species should be designated by the Superinten­dent of Trees and Landscaping to be the most appropriate for the planting space.

City Funded Removals

Staff proposes to submit the possible funding of non-hazardous Liquidambar street tree removals by the City as a budget issue item during the annual budget appropriation review period for Council consideration.  If the Council decides to fund the removal of non-hazardous Liquidambar street tree, staff recommends that the removal rate be limited to one hundred per year (exclusive of the number of hazardous trees removed.)  Council could decide to fund the removal of all one hundred trees per year, or they could subsidize a lesser number of removals.  In the event that Council decides to subsidize a lesser number, Council had also directed that staff consider developing criteria for citizens who cannot afford to have their trees removed.Staff recommends that any future city funded Liquidamber street tree removal program consider economic hardship as a factor by using the same criteria as the City Recreation Fee Waiver Program.  Staff would further recommend the future use of Sunnyvale Community Services to identify those residents who could qualify for city funded tree removal. 

Alternative to Replacement

Where property owners cannot afford to remove a large mature Liquidambar tree or cannot satisfy the insurance requirements, their primary alternative to replacement is treating the Liquidambar tree with a plant growth hormone such as ‘Florel’, or equivalent, to abort the immature, developing fruit balls.  Typically the cost to treat a large Liquid­ambar tree to abort the fruit development is around $100 per treatment.  The treatment of the Liquidambar street trees would require a work permit, which is currently free. 

FISCAL IMPACT

Implementation of property owner removal of City Liquidambar street trees will have a small administrative cost per removal.  Most of the cost will be in verification of tree removal work permit conditions and field inspection of the work.  This cost should be approximately twenty-five dollars per work permit and will vary depending on the number of tree removal work permits requested.  If the maximum removal rate of one hundred removals per year is approved, the total administrative cost could be up to $2,500 per year.  Staff recommends charging an administrative fee of $25 for the first year of this program.  Costs will be evaluated after the first year, and the fee will be modified if necessary to reflect the true cost of providing administrative services.

Community outreach may be through a utility bill insert and/or in the quarterly report.  The utility bill stuffers at four inserts per year would cost approximately $2,000 per year.  The notification in the quarterly report will not be an added expense to what is currently budgeted for the publication of the quarterly report.  If the City Council wishes to use utility bill inserts additional funding will be necessary.

Conclusion

With approximately 3,800 Liquidambar trees in the City’s street tree inventory, removal and replacement will take a number of years to remove the existing fruit bearing Liquidambar trees from the inventory.  At a seventy five trees per year rate, it will take fifty years to eliminate 3,800 Liquidambar trees; at 100 trees removed per year, it would take thirty-eight years to eliminate the existing Liquidambars; and, at a 200 tree removal rate, the elimination period would be nineteen years. 

Liquidambar tree removals, for reasons other than hazard, would be allowed by citizens who can privately fund the removal and replacement of their Liquidambar city street tree.  With the expense of the removal and replacement of a mature tree being relatively high, it is anticipated that there will not be a large number of property owners requesting Liquidambar street tree removals. Also there is a substantial faction of  property owners with Liquidambar street trees adjacent to their homes that like  Liquid­ambars and do not desire to have them removed.  Staff recommends that the number of Liquid­ambar street tree removals allowed per year be set at 100. 

The removal criteria of one tree in ten per block allows for an orderly replace­ment without denuding a neighborhood of its street trees.  The replacement species  selected are to be comparable in mature stature to the Liquidambar.  The selected replacement species should be uniform for the block which will make the maintenance requirements consistent for that block.  The uniformity of replacement tree species also increases the aesthetic impact of the street­scape.