Explanation
Background: This ordinance authorizes the Director of the Recreation and Parks Department to enter into a cooperative agreement with the Franklin County Engineer's Office to accept $15,000.00 for the Urban Tree Canopy Assessment Project.
The Franklin County Engineer’s Office requires legislation authorizing the City to enter into a cooperative agreement, authorizing the Director of Recreation and Parks to enter into this agreement and accept $15,000.00 from the County for the Urban Tree Canopy Assessment Project. This ordinance will provide this authorization for this partnership between Franklin County and the City of Columbus. The City will invoice the County for half of the funds, in the amount of $7,500.00, once this legislation is authorized. The remainder of the funds, in the amount of $7,500.00, will be invoiced and collected at the end of the project.
The 2022 Urban Tree Canopy Assessment is a regional land cover analysis that will measure and communicate the change of tree canopy cover over a ten-year period. Tree canopy is the percentage of land covered by trees as opposed to other types of land cover such as hard surfaces and water. Columbus has only done one canopy assessment before, published in 2015, with 2013 data. The previous analysis only examined the land within Columbus corporate boundaries. The 2022 assessment will evaluate the entire County, including all 41 political jurisdictions within the County. The consultant for the 2022 project, selected through competitive bidding, is Applied Geographics and the project kicked off in March 2022.
The 2022 Urban Tree Canopy Assessment is a key action within the city’s Urban Forestry Master Plan. With the ambitious goals of stopping net canopy loss, investing in equitable canopy, and reaching 40% canopy by 2050. A new canopy assessment is key to understanding trends in canopy gains and losses. The last time that Columbus’ canopy was analyzed found that 22% of the City is covered by tre...
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