TX governor wants to stop tree protection ordinances

Designating historic and at least significant tree is a start. Regulating removal of crap box elders, for example, is pushing it I would say
 
guymayor said:
Obviously; big gummint gettin in the way of our revered big corporations' rape of the earth!

Hey RR hit me up; I'm in NM a lot and need to connect re projects with Pueblo folk etc.
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Hey guy..
I'm in the cherokee nation. Hate to admit it, but it's in oklahoma. We have a few Acoma friends though. Want intro's?
 
Abbott removed his trees with permission. He complains because he was required to replace them.

Tree maintenance is not expensive for cities. Every dollar spent returns up to $5 in infrastructure services (stormwater abatement, air cleaning, electricity savings due to shade, etc.). One 20" tree provides far more benefits than 10 2-inch trees. The urban forest is the only part of a city's infrastructure with the potential to increase in services provided and value.

People who can't see the wisdom of preserving trees are welcome to live in places without TPOs, but it defies reason to hear that the "party of small government" wants to trample the home-rule rights of municipal governments (they also want to overturn plastic-bag bans and almost any other municipal reg that they don't like, while defying SCOTUS repeatedly in an effort to take medical decisions out of the hands of women and place them in the hands of bureaucrats). More than 50 TX cities have TPOs. I look forward to voting against these big-government bullies in the Capitol (again--though I think more of my fellow Texans will join me this time.).
 
Governments/bureaucracies do not have rights...... at least not in the USA. Individuals (and property owners) do.

I postulate the $5 benefit for every dollar spent you mentioned is pulled out of thin air.....would like to be shown that I am wrong.

Anything that requires county/city workers to maintain is going to be expensive.

Trees on public lands are not the issue here, voters can make those decisions via elections. This has to do with privately owned trees on private land.
 
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Many many studies have been published on the economic and environmental benefits of trees. While money does go into their maintenance and problems with infrastructure arise, many of these can be avoided or ameliorated via better plant selection, site preperation, and growing and planted practices. Having arborists on staff, rather than disinterested city employees, will improve quality of care and reduce costs in the long run. Just google "benefits of trees pdf" for some reading material.

Feel free to disagree with said data and reports and publish your own refuting them.
 
My point is that you cannot put actual dollar amount on the benefits of a standard publicly owned tree in a populated area. Looking at a tree/sitting under a tree vs a shade structure is worth different amounts of money to different people. Erosion control/shade/ etc could all be done via other natural methods or with man made solutions.

I get that parks and special trees have their place/value. I am referring to "working trees".

First google hit,

http://www.treesaregood.com/portals/0/docs/treecare/benefits_trees.pdf

No real numbers there, just feelings. Common knowledge that appealing landscaping adds value to a property, no info if the amount spent to get that landscaping is more or less than the gain.

Another one

http://treeday.planetark.org/documents/doc-752-ntd12-the-benefits-of-trees.pdf

More feelings, unless you talk about fruit trees.

This one may have some teeth but seems to skim over the "cost" and just looks at the benefits. Would need to check out the references to see how they calculate some of the benefits. I am going to guess they used some pretty loose approximations and modeling.

http://actrees.org/files/Research/benefits_of_trees.pdf


Again, people can vote if the benefits are worth the cost for their community, like with a bridge, parks, statues, etc, but that is not the issue Abbot is addressing.
 
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Ragnar said:
My point is that you cannot put actual dollar amount on the benefits of a standard publicly owned tree in a populated area. Looking at a tree/sitting under a tree vs a shade structure is worth different amounts of money to different people. Erosion control/shade/ etc could all be done via other natural methods or with man made solutions.....
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Actual dollar amounts of the costs of those benefits can be appraised by calculating the cost of producing shade, carbon sequestration, air and water cleaning etc. by other means. It's called Cost of Cure and it holds up in court. iTree Eco calculates by other means, but trees are like roads and bridges in that their value can be calculated. When a hedge is taken, the cost of a fence can be part of the restoration.

RE development is supported by infrastructure that is provided by public entities. It does not seem unreasonable that the same public entities can regulate green infrastructure.
 
Ragnar said:
Governments/bureaucracies do not have rights...... at least not in the USA. Individuals (and property owners) do.

I postulate the $5 benefit for every dollar spent you mentioned is pulled out of thin air.....would like to be shown that I am wrong.

Anything that requires county/city workers to maintain is going to be expensive.

Trees on public lands are not the issue here, voters can make those decisions via elections. This has to do with privately owned trees on private land.
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http://auf.isa-arbor.com/request.asp?JournalID=1&ArticleID=80&volume=29&issue=2&Type=1

http://depts.washington.edu/hhwb/

https://www.arborday.org/trees/index-benefits.cfm

http://www.naturewithin.info/UF/PsychBens-FS1.pdf

http://www.naturewithin.info/UF/Readings-FS6.pdf

http://www.naturewithin.info/UF/TreeBenefitsUK.pdf

http://theconversation.com/for-a-great-return-on-investment-try-trees-5050

https://global.nature.org/content/how-trees-make-cities-healthier

https://www.greenbiz.com/article/ca...il&utm_term=0_5cabc3824b-508649a1da-441358169
 
Ragnar said:
My point is that you cannot put actual dollar amount on the benefits of a standard publicly owned tree in a populated area. Looking at a tree/sitting under a tree vs a shade structure is worth different amounts of money to different people. Erosion control/shade/ etc could all be done via other natural methods or with man made solutions.

I get that parks and special trees have their place/value. I am referring to "working trees".

First google hit,

http://www.treesaregood.com/portals/0/docs/treecare/benefits_trees.pdf

No real numbers there, just feelings. Common knowledge that appealing landscaping adds value to a property, no info if the amount spent to get that landscaping is more or less than the gain.

Another one

http://treeday.planetark.org/documents/doc-752-ntd12-the-benefits-of-trees.pdf

More feelings, unless you talk about fruit trees.

This one may have some teeth but seems to skim over the "cost" and just looks at the benefits. Would need to check out the references to see how they calculate some of the benefits. I am going to guess they used some pretty loose approximations and modeling.

http://actrees.org/files/Research/benefits_of_trees.pdf


Again, people can vote if the benefits are worth the cost for their community, like with a bridge, parks, statues, etc, but that is not the issue Abbot is addressing.
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stop guessing and read the data. Multiple studies have found the same ROI. This includes the iTree analyses, which are "average" returns based on species and diameter, but also very specific studies in specific situations, such as comparing infrastructure costs before/after either a major planting or major loss of trees.
 
If trees are so obviously beneficial from a cost standpoint, then there should be no reason for TPOs. The reason TPOs exist, is to force people to spend money to maintain them vs. remove them (which is likely the most cost effective route).

Everyone should question a law that forces people to do something “for their own good”…. If it is really for their benefit, people would naturally do it on their own.

Despite how much I dislike neighborhoods that are clear cut before developing, the reason it’s done is because it is cost effective. Developers are in the money making business and if they could make more money keeping the trees, they would.

Many here work in the tree industry and know that tree maintenance/cleanup is not cheap.

I know from personal experience, that tree maintenance on my specific ½ acre with a mix of 35 trees is ~$2K/year (yes, we track what we spend). That is for pruning, clean up, water, fertilizer, oak wilt treatment, and structural damage repairs from limbs and critters that live in trees. Over just 5 years that is $10K. Could easily cut down all trees, add attic insulation, and upgrade to a more efficient HVAC unit for less than that. This is just over 5 years. We keep them because we want to (even though they are an expense). They do not “save” us money. Even if we did nothing to offset the increase in cooling requirement, 10K buys a lot of electricity. Same with the grass. On average, maintaining our lawn is several hundred dollars a month. Would be a lot more cost effective (and more functional) to have gravel or even concrete. If money/time got tight, trees and grass would be the first things to go because they are a significant unnecessary expense.

No argument that trees in populated areas can have benefits, but again, at what cost. Sure, if you remove a bunch of shade trees from around a structure, the cost to cool the structure may go up (assuming you do nothing else). But as shown in my example above, that is a not a fair comparison, because additional insulation or a more efficient HVAC system could offset the loss of shade, likely for less than the cost of tree maintenance.

Is cutting down a tree along a sidewalk going to overwhelm the existing storm drainage system? Likely not. 10 trees? Still no. If anything, the reduced debris in the storm drain system may be a benefit. Same with sidewalk/road damage. Cant forget the county worker than needs to trim the weeds around the tree or maintain the patch of soil around it (wage, vehicle to get there, equipment, vehicle and equipment maintenance, insurance, retirement, etc etc). If it was all concrete, pour it once then done. Can offset the CO2 consumption by planting a tree(s) in an un-populated area so it will not require any maintenance. In this example, trees along a sidewalk/road are purely an expense.

Again, I think we can all agree TPOs are wrong for privately owned trees. Public trees in populated areas are an expense and local taxpayers can decide if they are worth the cost.

Obviously on a macro sense, trees are good for many of the reason mentioned in this thread (especially without the maintenance/engineering costs). For an individual or small community in populated areas, trees are an expense.

I skimmed a few of those links and don’t see a lot of “costs” talked about along with a lot of feelings and “global warming” talk (I thought it was called climate change now….wait…)

I found your links entertaining. What a joke. Violence? Crime? Blood pressure? Life expectancy? Retardation? Trees improve all of this? Nothing else could be contributing to those differences? I guess it might make sense if you realize that trees cost money. More trees = more money.......

http://theconversation.com/for-a-great-return-on-investment-try-trees-5050

Did you even read this article? The BS is so thick it’s funny. Written by and for snow flakes (even in 2003). Scary to think people will read something like this and take it seriously.

http://www.naturewithin.info/UF/TreeBenefitsUK.pdf
 
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Ragnar said:
If trees are so obviously beneficial from a cost standpoint, then there should be no reason for TPOs. The reason TPOs exist, is to force people to spend money to maintain them vs. remove them (which is likely the most cost effective route).

Everyone should question a law that forces people to do something “for their own good”…. If it is really for their benefit, people would naturally do it on their own.

Despite how much I dislike neighborhoods that are clear cut before developing, the reason it’s done is because it is cost effective. Developers are in the money making business and if they could make more money keeping the trees, they would.

Many here work in the tree industry and know that tree maintenance/cleanup is not cheap.

I know from personal experience, that tree maintenance on my specific ½ acre with a mix of 35 trees is ~$2K/year (yes, we track what we spend). That is for pruning, clean up, water, fertilizer, oak wilt treatment, and structural damage repairs from limbs and critters that live in trees. Over just 5 years that is $10K. Could easily cut down all trees, add attic insulation, and upgrade to a more efficient HVAC unit for less than that. This is just over 5 years. We keep them because we want to (even though they are an expense). They do not “save” us money. Even if we did nothing to offset the increase in cooling requirement, 10K buys a lot of electricity. Same with the grass. On average, maintaining our lawn is several hundred dollars a month. Would be a lot more cost effective (and more functional) to have gravel or even concrete. If money/time got tight, trees and grass would be the first things to go because they are a significant unnecessary expense.

No argument that trees in populated areas can have benefits, but again, at what cost. Sure, if you remove a bunch of shade trees from around a structure, the cost to cool the structure may go up (assuming you do nothing else). But as shown in my example above, that is a not a fair comparison, because additional insulation or a more efficient HVAC system could offset the loss of shade, likely for less than the cost of tree maintenance.

Is cutting down a tree along a sidewalk going to overwhelm the existing storm drainage system? Likely not. 10 trees? Still no. If anything, the reduced debris in the storm drain system may be a benefit. Same with sidewalk/road damage. Cant forget the county worker than needs to trim the weeds around the tree or maintain the patch of soil around it (wage, vehicle to get there, equipment, vehicle and equipment maintenance, insurance, retirement, etc etc). If it was all concrete, pour it once then done. Can offset the CO2 consumption by planting a tree(s) in an un-populated area so it will not require any maintenance. In this example, trees along a sidewalk/road are purely an expense.

Again, I think we can all agree TPOs are wrong for privately owned trees. Public trees in populated areas are an expense and local taxpayers can decide if they are worth the cost.

Obviously on a macro sense, trees are good for many of the reason mentioned in this thread (especially without the maintenance/engineering costs). For an individual or small community in populated areas, trees are an expense.

I skimmed a few of those links and don’t see a lot of “costs” talked about along with a lot of feelings and “global warming” talk (I thought it was called climate change now….wait…)

I found your links entertaining. What a joke. Violence? Crime? Blood pressure? Life expectancy? Retardation? Trees improve all of this? Nothing else could be contributing to those differences? I guess it might make sense if you realize that trees cost money. More trees = more money.......

http://theconversation.com/for-a-great-return-on-investment-try-trees-5050

Did you even read this article? The BS is so thick it’s funny. Written by and for snow flakes (even in 2003). Scary to think people will read something like this and take it seriously.

http://www.naturewithin.info/UF/TreeBenefitsUK.pdf
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Are you deliberately misinterpreting the data, or just not actually reading it? You can't just decree that trees are more of an expense than a benefit. When faced with overwhelming evidence that you are wrong, you will have to come up with something other than your own opinion to show you're not. Nobody argues that a property owner who saves a tree will see a significant, direct increase to their personal bottom line. Similarly, the runoff resulting from one removal isn't that much, but cities are looking at the impacts of an entire forest, not just the oak in your back yard; in much the same way a few raindrops can become a flood, tree infrastructure services add up. The point here is that the accumulated benefits of the urban forest serve the entire community, to the point that the individual will see tax increases if TPOs are abandoned and trees are clearcut everywhere.

It's probably true that a homeowner could insulate and upgrade equipment to get a similar effect to maintaining a large shade tree, but that equipment degrades and declines while trees grow and increase the services provided. Besides, having another means of saving energy doesn't mean they can't also keep the tree and see even more benefits (most utilities and municipalities encourage both, often through cash rebates).

Over time, populations grow, electricity needs increase (for one example), and power plants must be replaced, expanded, or new ones built. We need to do everything possible to slow this process if we want to manage public funds efficiently. You call my links jokes, but you have not even attempted to dispute the research they cited in making the claims you find so ludicrous (hint: citations are right there on the material I provided). I can't fully explain why trees have an impact on crime or life expectancy, but I have read the studies and I believe they did a good job of controlling for other contributing factors. If you have a real argument to the contrary, I'm listening.

But I think I see where we stand, based on your snide, scare-quoted comments about climate change and global warming. You don't like the results, so you ignore the science. You are welcome to your own opinions, but you cannot change facts. The evidence I provided isn't just from some crackpot in a forest somewhere making shit up. There are reams of data from a range of sources in universities and labs throughout the nation, and they consistently reach similar conclusions. Money spent on trees is a net gain for communities in the form of infrastructure services. Trees make people happier and healthier. Trees often define the character of a place, attracting new residents to pay property taxes and tourists to pay sales taxes. If you want to live in a place with no trees, you can find a lot of communities with no TPOs where you can do what you like. The rest of us have agreed that TPOs are just as valid and important as zoning laws and trade licensing to the health, safety, and well-being of our communities. If you want to live in our towns, you should plan to follow our rules.
 
Levi.CO said:
Ha, if only this were true...
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It probably is true, to some extent, but, as we have just seen, even people in the industry who should know better still don't fully appreciate the extent to which they benefit. If the city told people they would get $1000 rebate to keep their tree. I believe most would accept that. Our challenge is to help them understand they are getting the grand but just not in cash.
 
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