This summer’s brutal heat signaled that we should be preserving big trees and space to plant new ones. Large-form trees like Douglas firs and sycamores are Portland’s quiet superheroes, providing health and environmental benefits that smaller trees, with their limited canopy, cannot.

Unfortunately, the Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) has drafted a little known administrative rule that does not require City Council approval but that will adversely affect space for future large-form trees, especially in low-income areas seeing intense development.

If approved, this would essentially circumvent the little protections large formed trees have in Portland.

Please consider weighing in on PBOT’s Pedestrian Design Guide update by Friday, October 30th!

The draft requires only a four-foot minimum furnishing zone (planting strip) in most street classifications. Due to competition with utilities in that space, four feet is not remotely wide enough for a large tree, which needs at least a six-foot planting strip to thrive. Trees also require clear overhead space. The draft should safeguard space for large trees on the side of streets without high-voltage wires and that shade our streets, our homes, and connect us to our parks, natural areas, and to one another.

The PBOT guide is just one example of an administrative rule that undermines leaders’ stated climate and equity goals. It’s the kind of bureau practice that slips under the public radar, skirting the edge of governmental transparency. Yet rules like those in this guide determine outcomes just as much as highly vetted City Council-approved codes do.

Please consider speaking and being the voice for Portland’s trees!

Tips & how to comment can be found here: 

ttps://www.treesforlifeoregon.org/news/space-for-trees-at-risk-update

Thank you!