ASHEVILLE – The long, lovely limbs where kids climb and birds build homes, the solid trunks that hold up hammocks, and the luscious blooms and leaves that shade hot sidewalks, excite pollinators and silently fight climate change - trees are deeply rooted in all aspects of Asheville life.

But many fear the oaks, maples, beech and magnolias are being taken for granted, neglected or worse, chopped down and killed in favor of break-neck development gripping the city.

Members of the city Tree Commission, which advises City Council on tree protection and enhancement, are working with the environmental nonprofit Asheville GreenWorks to speak for the trees, acknowledging their many life-enhancing properties with the revival of the Asheville Treasured Trees program, a call for the city to adopt a first urban forest master plan and the hiring an urban forester.

“We’re a Tree City USA. But when anyone realizes that and that we have no strong tree protection, there’s a look of shock on their face,” said Susan Sertain, a Treasured Tree committee volunteer for about five years.

“We’re in the Blue Ridge Mountains where everybody is hiking and loves their trees, yet we don’t have any way to protect them. It makes absolutely no sense.”

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She said the Treasured Trees program, in which people nominate mature, grand, historic or just beloved trees for special status, might serve as a jumping off point for action against what some are calling a crisis situation for Asheville’s rapidly diminishing tree cover.

What is a treasured tree?

The Treasured Trees program started in the 1990s by Susan Roderick, former long-time executive director of Quality Forward, the city trash-cleaning, tree-planting, beautification organization, now called Asheville GreenWorks, which planted many of Asheville's public space trees.

“We wanted to help owners consider not cutting down their trees, to show people what kinds of trees grow well here, and to encourage people to plant trees,” said Roderick, who retired in 2013.

Landowners were given plaques to place on their trees, a certificate to display and free advice from certified arborists on how to care for their tree. Streets, such as Kimberly Avenue, as well as areas such as Montford Park and Riverside Cemetery, were honored for their treasured trees.

The status was not used to stop construction or hinder business, Roderick said, since it brought no legal protection.

The program was partly paid for through sale of a Treasured Tree calendar, but the cost and the time commitment in keeping up a database that reached about 150 trees fell by the wayside about 12 years ago, Roderick said.

Sertain, along with other committee members Alison Ormsby and Cynthia and Michael Justice, have recently revived the program, taking on the tedious task of reviewing and visiting every tree on the list, sometimes discovering they have died or been cut down, replacing old plaques on the still-stately trees, and encouraging homeowners to nominate new trees for the list.

Trees up for consideration need to be on public or private land in Buncombe County, but otherwise the criteria is broad.

“If it has some kind of environmental or historic significance, that gives it value. If it’s a native tree known to be long-lived, and very adapted to this area, that’s one we want to hang on to,” Sertain said.

“There is no age qualification. If it’s in an area important to a slope that would keep a landslide from happening, or it’s in an area that’s very historic, but is not that old, it would meet the criteria.”

Trees can be nominated on the Asheville GreenWorks website, including the nominator’s name and address, the tree species and a photograph. Trees are selected by the Tree Protection Task Force, a volunteer group. Private residence addresses will not be made public, Sertain said.

Trees that make the grade

Some treasured trees are infamous – for instance, the magnolia in Pack Square Park in front of City Hall, which was the center of 2008 legal battle between conservationists and a developer who wanted to take it down and build condominiums. (The tree still stands.)

Some are the source of ecological education and inspiration such as a giant copper beech on the Rainbow School’s Haywood Road property in West Asheville. And some are just ancient – the white oak near the Parker-Patton house on Charlotte Street is believed to be more than 270 years old, said Michael Justice, meaning it sprouted before the American Revolution.

Mary Fierle has a story for every tree on her 2-acre property, the pear tree that used to produce enough fruit for making pear preserves, the black walnut hit by lightning, the red bud planted in memory of her father.

But none is as special as the massive Southern magnolia, somewhere between 70-80 years old, whose glossy evergreen leaves reach up to 70 feet high, has a skirt that gently sweeps the ground, and fragrant spring blooms “that the bees are crazy for.”

The magnolia is also the newest Asheville Treasured Tree, recently honored with a plaque and certificate, marking it among the city’s icons of green institutions.

Fierle is a master gardener who lives with her husband, Tim, minutes from downtown in a house built in the late 1800s.

“When I was looking to purchase the house 15 years ago, I drove up the driveway, and I noticed the tree before I noticed the house,” said Fierle, who grew up in Georgia where the tree is more common. “It smells like my childhood. Having large trees on a property provides a sense of place.”

Fierle’s tree can be seen on the June 1 Master Gardeners of Buncombe County Garden Tour.

“All of the data shows that trees increase property values, increase happiness levels of people, communities that plant and maintain trees,” Fierle said. “They help the economics of a community and livability of a community. I think we need to take care of the trees we have and we need to plant more trees.”

While being on the Treasured Tree list might engender pride, it doesn’t bring any money for tree care, which can run into the thousands of dollars, according to one homeowner.

Seven years ago Traci and Doug Burke bought property on Westwood Place off Haywood Road in West Asheville, which was home to a giant 75-foot white oak, with a 5-foot-diameter trunk, on the Treasured Tree list.

The couple plans to build a 12-unit apartment complex on the lot, which would necessitate taking down some of the tree branches. They have hired an arborist and landscape architect to help keep the tree intact, a costly endeavor, Traci Burke said.

“I’ve lived in Asheville my whole life and I love the mountains and Asheville and I’m a tree lover. We would love to keep that tree,” she said.

“It was neglected for so many years. There was tons of ivy growing on it. My husband and I have spent a lot of time taking care of it. It’s awesome that so many people in the community love this tree,” Burke said.

Asheville’s tree crisis

While saving individual trees is important, Asheville’s urban forest – all the trees in city limits on public and private land - is in crisis, under stress and rapidly shrinking, said Ed Macie, a retired forester with the U.S. Forest Service and member of the eight-person Tree Commission.

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That is ironic, considering the mountain town is famously surrounded by more than a million acres of green space, including Pisgah National Forest, the Blue Ridge Parkway and other state parks, forests and natural areas.

“We recognized over the last few years the city has been losing a lot of tree canopy, mostly as a result of development,” Macie said.

A preliminary canopy study in 2017, the Urban Forest Sustainability and Management Review, aka a gap analysis, showed an approximate 8 percent loss of tree cover in the city limits over the last decade, or about 1,250 acres, from 55 percent to 47 percent. Macie calls that loss “disturbing.”

“Asheville is 25 years behind other cities in the South when it comes to tree protection,” Macie said. “We can’t live without them. It comes down to the role that trees play in mitigating or offsetting human influences.”

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Trees protect against heat islands – cities are 5-7 degrees warmer than surrounding areas – by providing shade. Around homes, they act as natural air conditioning. They help to hold soil in place and prevent erosion, manage stormwater runoff and mitigate flooding, and scrub particulate matter, helping to decrease air pollution, Macie said.

But perhaps most important, trees sequester carbon, pulling out of the air one of the main culprits causing climate change.

There is also the human dimension – in urban environments, studies have shown that street trees, buffer trees and trees strategically placed in parking lots form a sense of place and encourage people to linger longer and shop more, and reduce crime.

The Tree Commission has recommended, and City Council approved, a comprehensive tree analysis, which will include change in tree canopy, but will also quantify loss of carbon sequestration value. Macie anticipates, with the increase in development, that the new analysis could show a 10 percent drop in tree cover.

The advisory council also recommended the city hire an urban forester, strengthen the existing tree ordinance and develop an urban forest master plan.

The new plan would take a holistic approach to Asheville’s green infrastructure by instituting tree protection and replacement requirements to comply with a new no-net loss canopy policy, defining protected trees, conducting urban forester site visits early in the permitting process, and prohibiting the planting of invasive species, among other policies.

Those are sorely needed, said Tree Commission member Sharon Sumrall, who is also an appointee to the technical review committee.

“There is no tree protection in Asheville,” Sumrall said.

She cites the ongoing plans by Seritage SRC Finance LLC to redevelop a portion of the Asheville Mall as an example where trees are getting short shrift.

Even though there is a tree ordinance, it only regulates tree removal and replanting requirements for commercial developments, and on private property only in historic districts such as Montford and on steep slope neighborhoods such as Town Mountain and Beaucatcher Mountain.

The ordinance does restrict severe pruning and tree topping (completely removing the tops or crowns of trees) on city property and rights of way, and requires fencing and protection of trees of a certain size during construction, but at the rate that hotels, homes and apartments are going up, it is hard to keep track of every tree.

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“There’s just not a whole lot of protection for trees, especially on private property. You can just denude your property,” Sumrall said.

Setting sights on city budget

The city has budgeted $20,000 for the tree analysis study this year. Public Works Director Greg Shuler, who oversees the maintenance of city trees and the city arborist, has requested $250,000 for the urban forest master plan.

The urban forester position would require an upfront cost of $104,205, which would include a vehicle, computer and salary, and an ongoing cost of $70,035. The position would be heavily involved in plan review and enforcement, Shuler said.

The city now has an arborist, Mark Foster, who works for the Public Works Department. The urban forester would be housed under Development Services, Shuler said.

“An arborist is trained to focus on the health and well-being of a tree, while an urban forester is more focused on how the trees in a forest interact with one another,” Shuler said.

“In the municipal setting, our city arborist is charged with managing the trees within the city's rights of way and real property. The urban forester would focus on the trees on private property impacted by development.”

The city budget will be proposed at the May 14 City Council meeting, open to public hearing on May 28 and voted on June 11.

City Councilwoman Julie Mayfield, who is the Tree Commission liaison, said she would like to see Asheville develop an urban tree master plan.

“Asheville views itself as a green city and like most things in the environment, we have to take care of them or risk losing them. We don’t have a plan for keeping our urban forest intact,” she said.

She said Asheville would do well to model itself after other cities with strong tree ordinances.

Model tree behavior

Charlotte is known as a leader in tree protection, which could bode well for Asheville since the new city manager, Debra Campbell, served as Charlotte’s planning director and assistant city manager.

“I worked with staff to develop a residential tree ordinance that provided density bonuses (allowed more density of development as long as more trees were preserved in the process) for tree preservation,” Campbell said. “We would review subdivision plans for compliance with the tree preservation ordinance.”

Several years ago, city staff in Charlotte, known for its 100-year-old willow oaks, noticed the trees were reaching the end of their natural life cycle. The tree deaths, along with development, were leading to a loss of urban canopy, said Erin Oliverio, city tree canopy manager.

A canopy analysis proved the theory – the city’s canopy cover was 46.8 percent in 2016, down from 47.1 percent in 2012. The city council approved an urban forest master plan in 2017 and set a goal of 50 percent canopy cover by 2050, Oliverio said, and 12 action steps for moving forward.

“The first recommendation was getting a team together,” Oliverio said. “It can’t just be a city-driven effort. We need to engage neighborhood groups.”

Their canopy analysis found that 80 percent of tree cover in Charlotte is on private land.

Another action step calls for expanding the city’s partnership with TreesCharlotte, a nonprofit that raises funds and holds public programs aimed on how to plant and preserve trees, and holds tree giveaways and plantings.

The plan also calls for regular updates to the tree canopy assessments – the next will be in 2021, initiating a city-wide “identity campaign” revolving around trees, exploring corporate sponsorships, and formalizing a management plan for public trees, among other steps.

Making sure trees are evenly distributed through all economic areas of the city is an important goal of the plan, Oliverio said.

“We want to make sure everyone has access to benefits trees provide – carbon removal, heat island reduction, better water quality, lower heating costs,” she said.

Laurie Reid, assistant city arborist, said Charlotte’s tree ordinance requires commercial developments to plant trees along the frontage of every public street, for open surface parking lots, each parking space has to be within 40 feet of a tree, and 15 percent of property must be set aside for tree preservation, known as tree save areas.

“Some areas of the city have options when it comes to tree save,” Reid said. “They can pay into a tree fund – the Tree Canopy Preservation Program - and the city uses that money to preserve large acreage of property and put that into a conservation easement.”

In the last two years, working with the Catawba Lands Conservancy, Charlotte has saved more than 270 acres of land and brought in more than $6 million in funds to buy open space and smaller urban sites to plant trees that will remain forever protected.

In Asheville, GreenWorks has been planting trees since 1973, and continues to plant about 800 a year.

The group is pushing for an urban master plan and stricter tree ordinance, but in the meantime, the nonprofit has been working with a $100,000 Duke Energy grant to promote Asheville’s trees, incubate them at a nursery at the Buncombe County Sports Complex, and to hold free tree workshops and give away trees. The next tree giveaway will be March 30 downtown.

“We’re at the point where we need to take action,” said Hendricks, with the Tree Commission. “If Asheville is going to be a climate resilient city, this is climate resiliency 101. A strong tree ordinance and planting trees is the low hanging fruit because trees do so much. It changes everything in a city if you have good tree cover.”

Learn about trees

ISA certified arborist, Ed Macie, will lead an Asheville GreenWorks tree workshop on the impacts of construction and development on trees. Free. Meet 6-7:30 p.m. at Fifth Season Gardening, 4 South Tunnel Road, Asheville.

Want a free tree?

Asheville GreenWorks’ Tree Giveaway is 9 a.m.-1 p.m. March 30 at First Baptist Church, 5 Oak St. Register a spot. Bring a valid form of ID or most recent water bill to verify residency in Buncombe County.

Want to nominate a Treasured Tree?

Fill out a free nomination form on the Treasured Tree website at GreenWorks.org.