Earlier this year, we explored the challenges that San Francisco is facing in maintaining the trees of our urban forest. Limited time and funding for pruning, staking, and overall maintenance, coupled with an ongoing drought and aging trees, has led to a barrage tree-related property damage across the city. And with El Niño scheduled to batter the city with storms this winter, things are only going to get worse. 

To combat tree issues both existing and unforeseeable, District 8 Supervisor Scott Wiener has been working with a group of neighbors, home owners, arborists, and others to devise a permanent fix.

In a Medium article last week, Wiener outlined many of the issues with local street trees, and suggested the creation of a parcel tax to pay for their ongoing care and maintenance.

"For nearly 40 years, residents have tried to fix San Francisco’s broken tree policy through the budget process," he wrote. "This approach has never worked."

"It's still just a possibility, but the solution from our ongoing meetings and discussions is leaning in the direction of a small parcel tax to homeowners," Wiener's aide Andres Power explained. "The tax would likely be around $30 per homeowner."

The Medium article elaborates that the tax amount may vary depending on the property: "$30 for a single-family home, $20 for condominiums, and higher amounts for larger commercial buildings."

Photo: johnjoh/Flickr

If passed, the tax would be firmly restricted from serving anything but its original purpose, Wiener said in his article. "The tax will be legally restricted for the maintenance of street trees and fixing damage they cause, and will be conditioned on the City taking over responsibility for all street trees. Thus, the parcel tax will create lockbox funding for street trees — funding that cannot be diverted by politicians for other needs — and will be automatically terminated if the city ever tries to dump tree maintenance on property owners in the future."

Not only would the tax fund maintenance of an existing 105,000 street trees, it would also cover the planting of 50,000 future trees, to help stem the ongoing tree die-off engendered by the current issues.

Power stressed that this is still too early to be an official recommendation. "Our working group has a final meeting sometime in January. The goal of that meeting is to come up with a proposal."

What are your thoughts on the possible tax? What other solutions do you see to the ongoing tree care and maintenance problems?

UPDATE, 12/06/15 - 2:35pm: Friends of the Urban Forest Executive Director Dan Flanagan shared his thoughts on the state of San Francisco's street trees and the possibility of a parcel tax:

"There's a growing body of evidence that urban forests provide essential benefits, so it's surprising that a supposedly 'green' city like San Francisco neglects its urban forest so badly.  We're in favor of whatever funding solution will ensure that the city reverses the decline of its tree population and properly maintains existing trees."