Executive Summary

According to the Borough's Comprehensive Plan, visual quality and streetscapes of the Borough are very important as the Borough considers itself the center of commerce, industry and social life for Southeastern Pennsylvania. The issues of Character and Appearance; Parks, Recreation and Open Space; and Community Facilities and Services can all be improved by a more holistic approach to care and management of the Borough's street trees.

One need only to look at the 1874 picture of the Borough on the front page of the Comprehensive Plan to appreciate the role that trees play in a Borough. Since that time, our street trees have grown old and many must be taken down and others treated to assure public safety. Planting hardly keeps up with the removals and many parts of the Borough need many more trees. The responsibility of the property owner to take down the large street trees at his or her expense lessen the chance that a new tree will be planted.

Trees provide many benefits besides their majestic beauty in our landscapes. They reduce heating and cooling bills, they reduce air pollution, they store carbon (lessen global warming impacts), they affect storm water runoff, they provide habitat for birds and squirrels, they make people feel better, and they reduce crime. With all these benefits we therefore recommend:

1. The current street tree budget be increased to cover the costs of removal of hazardous and condemned street trees, and;

2. The Borough of West Chester create a Shade Tree Commission to assist the urban forester.

The most effective shade tree programs in communities similar to West Chester plant, maintain and remove trees. Such programs both protect the current tree stock and promote an increase in tree canopy cover. We recommend that the Borough revise its street tree ordinance to mimic these more effective programs, thereby increasing the benefits the Borough receives from trees.

These trees reduce air and noise pollution, increase property values, reduce storm water runoff, modify weather extremes and are one of the reasons we are deemed a desirable community. A CITYGreen analysis of canopy cover for the Borough of West Chester estimates annual pollution removal benefits at $77,650. This figure does not include benefits provided by storm water reduction and carbon dioxide uptake or sequestration. The average canopy cover (including private and public trees) for the Borough of West Chester was 25% in 2000. This is considerably lower than the average canopy cover for all urban areas in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania which is 34% (Nowak et al. 2002 -see Appendix A).

In the program we recommend, property owners would still pay a modest fee for a new tree, and be responsible for watering it, but the Borough of West Chester would plant the new tree, maintain it, and remove condemned or hazardous trees. Borough property owners already incur these removal costs. The advantages of the Borough performing these duties rather than individual property owners are:

1. Level costs (no large unexpected costs) to property owners;

2. Less cost to property owners through bulk purchasing power and greater expertise of Borough, and;

3. Increase in the Borough tree canopy cover and associated benefits.

The West Chester Borough shade tree budget is significantly lower than the budgets of similar municipalities that plant, maintain and remove trees, as seen in the following table (see Appendix B).

A shade tree budget of about $180,000 would be an appropriate annual budget for the Borough of West Chester to plant, maintain, and remove public trees. This would amount to an increase of about $5 per person per year in the Borough of West Chester to cover this additional budget expense. If the $100,000 increase over the existing budget is unacceptable due to the current fiscal situation of the Borough, we propose that the budget be increased by $25,000 per year for 4 years to meet the funding level needed.

It is important to note that Borough property owners already incur these costs as private expenses. In a manner similar to trash collection, the issue is whether the Borough can perform this service more uniformly and cost effectively than individuals trying to obtain this service themselves.

Without Borough support to remove condemned and hazardous trees, we believe tree canopy cover will decrease with negative consequences. We recommend that this change occur in fiscal year 2004.

OBSERVATIONS

      Current Tree Canopy Cover and Benefits

An analysis of canopy cover in the Borough shows that the overall average cover is 25% which compares to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania average of 34.4% for urban areas (Nowak et al. 2002). This analysis was carried out in December 2002 by Dr. Amy Liu of the Department of Geography and Planning at West Chester University (WCU), and a WCU graduate student, Jeff Overstreet, using digital orthophotos of the Borough flown in 2000. The percent canopy cover by census tract for the Borough of West Chester is in the following table.

It is clear that the urban forest benefit is not distributed evenly across the Borough, and that pattern may be associated with both race and income.

Benefits of the current canopy in the Borough of West Chester include removal of air pollutants, ozone, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, particulate matter, and carbon monoxide to the tune of $77,650. This analysis was also carried out in December 2002 by Dr. Amy Liu of the Department of Geography and Planning at West Chester University (WCU), and a WCU graduate student, Jeff Overstreet, using digital orthophotos of the Borough flown in 2000 and CITYgreen software (American Forests 2000). A breakdown of the benefits by pollutant type is below (Appendix I).

From the CITYgreen analysis, the Borough's tree canopy represents 12,462 tons of carbon storage, and the rate at which the canopy sequesters carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, is 97 tons per year. The benefits of tree canopy also extend into flood protection and groundwater infiltration. Further analysis could provide data on the specific benefits to the Borough that the tree canopy provides with respect to storm water generation and quality. The Borough's character as a village in the Eastern

Deciduous forest is also integral to the attraction the Borough has for not only its residents and property owners, but also the large and growing downtown retail and restaurant businesses.