Richmond stopped keeping track of its trees, but a grant-funded plan is in place to change that.

Richmond is preparing to spend $1 million over the next two years to collect new data on every tree in the city, build tree management software, and develop long-term plans for planting and maintenance. 

The last tree inventory was completed 12 years ago. Since then, Richmond has not had a system to update tree records, tracking declining ones and planning for new ones.

“We’re very excited to move forward,” said Jason Lacey, parks maintenance superintendent, who announced the grant during the city’s Urban Forest Advisory Committee meeting in November. 

The previous citywide tree inventory dataset, which was funded by the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, showed 22,051 trees and 13,000 potential planting sites in Richmond. The newest entries appear in February 2022, and more than one-third of the tree condition fields are blank. 

Because the city hasn’t kept track, no one really knows how many trees Richmond has today. 

The missing and outdated information from the previous survey makes it difficult for the city to know which trees need maintenance or removal. That has been a sore point for many Richmond residents, including Kate Sibley, who has lived in Richmond since 2003. 

“The sycamores in Richmore Village are dead and dying,” Sibley said at the Urban Forest Advisory Committee meeting. “I have huge branches on one of the trees in front of my house. They’re so dead, and they’re a hazard. I stopped a long time ago trying to get anybody to come over and do any pruning because I never got a response.”

Removing all the hazard trees in Sibley’s neighborhood at once would make it look “like a desert,” Lacey said, adding, “We also want to be upfront of having a planting plan in place as we take those trees out.” 

He said updated data and a coordinated strategy are crucial to guiding large-scale tree removals and replantings. The new plan will set canopy goals for the next 10 to 20 years and establish a tree-exchange ratio, such as planting two or three new trees for every large one taken down.  

The new grant comes from the Hellman Foundation, which promotes equity in Bay Area communities. It has awarded more than $75 million since 2011 and plans to fully spend down its resources by 2034. Last year, it gave Richmond two $250,000 grants for the Richmond Park Equity Program.

The next step is for City Council to formally accept the grants, Lacey said.

Funding for urban greening projects requires grant applications to government or philanthropic organizations, said Jennifer Wolch, professor emerita of City and Regional Planning at UC Berkeley. Wolch said a barrier for cities like Richmond is not having enough staff to write competitive applications for county, state or federal funding.

Richmond City Council member Doria Robinson said the city’s financial situation has improved significantly in recent years because of aggressive taxation programs, after decades in which limited resources pushed basic services and public safety ahead of trees and urban greening.

In addition, the city received a windfall settlement with Chevron of $550 million, beginning this year and continuing for the next 10 years. 

“We’ve started planting a bunch of trees over the last 10 and 20 years, and now we need a plan to take care of them,” Robinson said. 

(Top photo by Yaelle Tang)

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