The title of this post is the motto adopted by the Conservation Advisory Council in 2022, when the CAC launched its campaign for sidewalk and street tree planting. Since then, the CAC has planted street trees every year. Last year, with a grant from the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation, the CAC planted fifty-two trees on Harry Howard Avenue, along the Empire State Trail.
Unfortunately, although the CAC is planting new trees, there are no protections in place for the mature trees we already have. A sad case in point is this tree, which stood in front of 338 Warren Street for more than thirty years, providing gracious greenery and welcome shade.
Hudson has talked about a tree ordinance for close to twenty years. It's high time it happened.
COPYRIGHT 2025 CAROLE OSTERINK
Update: Gossips was informed this morning that the tree was removed because of "safety and liability issues." A branch of the tree had fallen on a car, so the tree was removed to prevent something like that from happening again.
Trees clean the air..trees provide oxygen..trees cool city streets..trees provide needed shade..trees help combat climate change..trees beautify a space..trees are the oxygen of a community and so much more..damn shame to chop down beautiful, healthy trees
ReplyDeleteIn Europe street trees are kept trimmed, so that they do not reach the point where they are so large and unruly that they need to be taken down. A program to keep city street trees properly trimmed would provide jobs and help keep our streets cool and beautiful.
ReplyDeletedid the city cut it down or the building owner? Seems like overkill instead of just trimming the tree.
ReplyDeleteIt was removed by the building owner, who maintains the tree was unsafe.
DeleteIf you cut down a tree every time a branch fell off of it, there wouldn't be any trees left. I wonder if it was one of those branches DPW cut off last summer while trimming branches and left hanging up in the tree rather than cart away.
DeleteCarole, I'm sorry you didn't refer to my recent experiences with the CAC, which offered some insight as to some of the CAC's shortcomings, including its emphasis on new trees (with a mortality rate of some 10% by my unofficial count) and lack of concern for old trees (which offer much more health benefits to citizens). --peter meyer
ReplyDeleteI think both needs to happen.
DeleteLast year I drilled down a little into the proposed Tree Ordinance which, as I learned then, was designed more to preserve the existing tree coverage but did little to expand it. The document I was looking at was a draft that contained some additional justification.
It stated that Hudson currently has a tree coverage of around 5% or even a little less while stating that 45% was considered a sustainable number.
That's an order of a magnitude in discrepancy but based on my own experience I believe it.
I asked Margaret tonight about that ordinance and she said that the controversial bit, namely property owners having to replace trees they take down on their property (or pay into a tree fund), has been taken out.
Sounds like a defanging but I think in reality they took out the bit that made it unpalatable and it now focuses on preserving trees on public property.
What we need next is more budgetary allotments for planting new trees. Few things offer a better cost to benefit ratio.
Well, at least that tree's raised tree grates 2 inches above the sidewalk won't be able to put anyone in the hospital anymore!
ReplyDeleteA city that allows property owners to do as they please with their trees, especially sidewalk trees, and allows tree grates that are no longer helpful or needed for trees to become dangerous eyesores is a city without its shit together. You'd think in the year 2025 we could do better to make sure a property owner is not able to cut a sidewalk tree down that they don't like or that they think is dangerous or dead when it is not. In Massachusetts, as I understand it, every municipality is required to have an arborist on staff. They make the calls about whether or not a tree
is to comes down, and they likely make sure all sidewalk trees are properly maintained and looked after.
I have a list of 5 properties whose tree branches are overgrown and well into pedestrians' faces. They are all code violations that our code department is supposed to deal with but they do not such thing. We have to do better than this, everything is a mess at City Hall and no one knows if or when we might have a tree ordinance. Kamal Johnson probably doesn't even know what a tree ordinance looks like, let alone a ginko leaf.
Again, where's the CAC? These are old questions and issues. --peter meyer
DeleteI don't think the CAC has any executive powers and it's not an enforcement agency.
DeleteTheir budget is basically negligible. It's really just a group of volunteers that do the very thankless job of writing grant applications. They've managed to redirect quite a bit of state funds to Hudson. It's never enough of course, but the city would be worse off without them.
I'm sorry Tassilo, but this is just a big excuse. No "Executive Powers"? So why have a CAC? If they have managed to "redirect quite a bit of state funds...." so what will it be? They have no power? Or they simply do what they want to do? And have no responsibility to the voters? Sorry, but CAC better take some responsibility for taking care of the City's trees or quit.
DeleteI mean, they have a budget of maybe $20k. How would they enforce anything? They have no staff.
DeleteIt's also not their prescribed job. They have an advisory role aiding other city agencies (the council, Planning Board etc.) to make better decisions where natural resources are concerned.
Creating an inventory of available natural resources is actually one of their main jobs.
My understanding is that the Tree Ordinance came out of the CAC but it didn't seem like it would pass in the council.
It's not clear to me what role you would have liked the CAC to play when it came to the cutting down of this particular tree on Warren St.
That's one of the things trees do! Drop leaves, twigs, flowers, branches. The trees need care--pruning, etc. I'm new in town, but it seems the town bends over backwards for certain individuals without taking a bigger perspective--thinking of the community as a whole. The trees in my area on South Second are very small--we actually would benefit from more canopy. But I hear that the trees were chosen by the individual home owners. Many of these owners might not realize the benefits of tree canopies and how much they lower summer temperature for everyone walking on sidewalk plus the houses here and the greater community.
ReplyDeleteIt’s great some work has been done towards this, as recently mentioned by Trixie. Having just helped to carry the 126 foot long trans 🏳️⚧️ rights flag from 7th street park to the bottom of Warren, I can tell you- we do not have enough shade. Most of the way we were roasting. When we passed under a tree it was COOL. I walk a lot in town and I’m glad the hospital is on Upper Columbia Street since that’s probably where one is most likely to have a heart attack from heatstroke. Of course Hudson doesn’t need to reinvent the wheel on this one. Planting trees here and there won’t solve any issues. We need a city with a city wide tree ordinance law that
ReplyDeleteprioritizes tree planting from one end to the other. Parking lots need to be part of that law with 1 tree required for every 10 cars. With a guiding comprehensive law, we can receive state and federal grant money. It has to become Hudson law otherwise we will have this willy nilly nightmare of planting rando trees here and there that don’t provide proper cover, and all the while be cutting down beautiful historic trees because they haven’t had proper arborist maintenance. We need to follow suit with the thousands of other cities in the country and others which have successfully chosen the right kind of trees to provide shade canopy, need the least
maintenance and not increase allergens. We have to have a capable DPW arborist/garden team that knows how to maintain the trees by properly trimming them and fertilizing them. The health benefits are enormous. Even rates of domestic violence decrease where there’s good tree canopy. NYC has had a very successful campaign planting trees for shade, and the streets with those trees are fabulous. More info here: https://www.nature.org/en-us/about-us/where-we-work/united-states/new-york/stories-in-new-york/canopy-factsheets-nyc/
I gave that very pitch about Warren St being distinctly unpleasant on a sunny day in summer to all three members of the BEA last year when I was arguing my case to give more money to the CAC. My email included suggestions where to take that money from.
DeletePredictably, Council President Tom shut this discussion down with the charm of a Brillo pad.