Joliet wants to become a leafier city

You, too, can help grow the urban forest of Joliet.

That’s one message coming with a new Tree Preservation Ordinance the city is developing.

Joliet is in the process of adding 1,000 trees a year in city parkways – the areas between sidewalks and streets that actually belongs to the city along with the trees.

But there’s room for more.

“We encourage people who want trees to request them,” Rita Renwick, chairman of the city Tree Board, said this month at a meeting of a City Council committee that reviewed the new ordinance.

The city has a form on its website for parkway tree requests.

“Everyone parks their car under a shady tree or on the shady part of the street,” Renwick said. “We all appreciate trees.”

There can be fines for those who don’t – at least those who destroy trees in the parkways. The fine for such destruction is $500.

The Tree Preservation Ordinance covers 22 topics ranging from fines to control of invasive species.

It doesn’t contain new rules, Renwick said. But it puts into one place rules now spread throughout the city code.

There was some discussion during the Land Use and Legislative Committee on May 12 on how far the city should go to preserve trees.

“We want to let the general public know about trees,” Council member Joe Clement said. “[But] I don’t want to get into where somebody owns a piece of property, and the city tells them they can’t cut a tree down.”

Renwick said the city is not going to prohibit tree removal on private property.

“We felt the public really wouldn’t go for it,” she said. “There are valid reasons for cutting down a tree.”

Instead, the city hopes to encourage people to preserve trees by creating a new legacy tree designation that would be be applied to older trees that provide more leafy coverage than young, small trees.

“You have to plant a lot of small trees to make up for one huge tree that comes down,” Renwick said.

One reason there is room for more trees in the parkways is that the city has cut down about 7,000 ash trees infested with the emerald ash borer. The city is in the eighth year of the 10-year program adding 1,000 annually.

The city recently used a $20,000 grant to conduct a tree survey of a West Side area that runs between Jefferson Street and Black Road and between Larkin Avenue and Center Street. The survey counted 6,000 trees in that area and will be used in the development of the Urban Forestry Management Plan, which will replace the existing one done in the early 1990s.

Renwick said the Tree Preservation Ordinance is

city hall wantsity hopes to encourage residents to help grow