“Recognize the value and importance of not only planting trees downtown but maintaining the canopy.”
10 years ago, the Downtown Development Authority set a goal; a 10 percent downtown tree canopy by 2025. And now that they've made it:
"We hit our ten percent goal last year a year early.”
DDA operations director Melvin Eledge says keeping them alive is a priority.
“Before we were wholesale planting as many trees as we could. Now it’s time to focus on maintaining the health of the urban canopy.”
Friends Of Grand Rapids Parks is partnering with the DDA to maintain and monitor the urban canopy and plant 100 new trees, about a third of them replacing dead ones in sidewalk planters.
“Those have a high morbidity rate, so we are focused a lot of efforts on replacing dead trees, removing stumps and replacing those trees.”
The new trees will be deciduous, the kind that have leaves and not needles.
“Pine trees, they are green all year, but they don’t really provide canopy.”
Eledge says urban canopies help lower summer temperatures, manage storm water runoff, reduce stress and, according to Grand Rapids mayor David LaGrand, slow down traffic.
“Lots of studies show the closer you get trees to the streets the slower people go. Yes, we have planted trees historically in medians along the sides of roads and I think we will continue to add trees.”
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