Urban Forestry
Let’s Plant ABQ is a unified campaign to broadly support Mayor Tim Keller’s initiative to plant 100,000 trees.
Benefits of Urban Forests
- sequester carbon dioxide
- filter pollution from the air
- collect and filter pollutants from stormwater runoff
- stabilize soils and prevent erosion
- produce oxygen
- provide habitat for birds and other wildlife
- cool the environment and help reduce impacts of the urban heat island
- enhance quality of life for residents
- provide a buffer and screen against noise, light and pollution
Urban trees located outside of city property can help the development and business community. Trees can attract more customers, boost property values, improve the customer experience, enhance brand image, and reduce cooling costs.
Let’s Plant ABQ is a unified campaign to broadly support Mayor Tim Keller’s initiative to plant 100,000 trees.
Learn more about Let's Plant ABQ
Street Tree Ordinance Update Project
Read the Street Trees Ordinance
Albuquerque has a robust tree inventory system that contains both public and privately owned trees. Of the trees collected, we are able to quantify benefits based on industry standards and analyze carbon sequestration, carbon storage, number of pounds of pollutants removed, and stormwater intercepted. There are many benefits that trees provide that aren’t as easily quantifiable, so we also want to recognize wildlife habitat, energy savings, and even quality of life and neighborhood character. From what we can quantify, we can see that Albuquerque is seeing at a very minimum, $100,000 in benefits annually. This update is a great way to prioritize trees as they bring value back to the community.
Measured Benefits
- Albuquerque Inventoried Trees: $98,017 annual tree benefits
- 2,552,014 lbs of CO2 sequestered
- 14,460 lbs of air pollutants
- 1,654,132 cubic feet of stormwater intercepted
Mental Health
People without views of nature from their desks claimed 23% more sick days than workers with views of nature.
Wildlife Habitat
Planting and protecting trees provides habitat for hundreds of birds and small animals.
Energy Savings
Residents and businesses can save up to 50% on hot-day energy bills.
Carbon Services
In one year, an acre of mature trees absorbs the amount of CO2 produced by a car driven 26,000 miles.
Stormwater Management
Contiguous tree canopy is estimated to intercept 4" of rain over 1 acre in a typical year - about 108,000 gallons.
Cleaner Air
Roadside trees reduce nearby indoor air pollution by more than 50%.
Goals
- Align the city ordinances with the goal of maintaining and increasing citywide tree canopy in an equitable fashion.
- Modernize the tree-related ordinances using relevant Best Management Practices and industry standards that integrate the latest advancements in urban forestry and arboriculture.
- Update the tree-related ordinances to include a tree removal permit and mitigation process, ensuring that enforcement is practical, efficient, and provides an opportunity for public education.
Engagement
This past summer, the City of Albuquerque Urban Forestry met with a number of different groups to gather feedback on the process of moving forward with improving and re-branding the Street Tree Ordinance to become the Urban Tree Canopy Ordinance. The City conducted extensive engagement campaigns to inform updates to the tree-related ordinances in the City’s municipal code. Focus groups were conducted with developers, smart development groups, conservation groups, Tree New Mexico, architects, landscape architects and planners, and the community. Through surveys and meetings, participants shared their personal and professional experience with Albuquerque’s tree-related ordinances. These insights established a vision of what stakeholders want for Albuquerque’s urban forest and informed ordinance updates that will support that vision. We are now in our draft recommendations phase of this project where we are drafting up recommended changes to the existing Street Tree Ordinance. The City is committed to recommending ordinance updates that clarify requirements, offer incentives, and streamline the approval process for street trees.