Attempting to use i-Tree Design as part of a municipal tree ordinance

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aschmidt
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Joined: Thu Oct 24, 2019 12:20 pm

Attempting to use i-Tree Design as part of a municipal tree ordinance

Post by aschmidt » Thu Oct 24, 2019 12:28 pm

Hello All:

I serve as the Town Forestry Officer for the Town of Greenburgh, in Westchester County, New York. My office has drafted a new Tree Protection Ordinance to replace our outdated, existing ordinance (we regulate tree removal on private property), which is slated to be discussed as part of a public hearing with our Town Council, on November 13, 2019.

With respect to tree replacement requirements, when a tree or trees are approved for removal, our goal is for applicants to be required to replace the environmental value of the tree(s), in terms of stormwater absorption and CO2 removal, assuming the replacement trees at a mid-maturity size.

What we are beginning to wonder is if i-Tree Design is going to be too complicated for the average homeowner to use. If anyone has any experience or can provide any useful information, it would be greatly appreciated.

Aaron Schmidt, ISA
Town Forestry Officer
Town of Greenburgh, NY
Jason.Henning
i-Tree Team
Posts: 337
Joined: Fri Dec 21, 2012 7:45 am

Re: Attempting to use i-Tree Design as part of a municipal tree ordinance

Post by Jason.Henning » Thu Oct 24, 2019 1:04 pm

Hi Aaron,
I could see i-Tree Design being challenging for some users. As an alternative you could try MyTree (https://mytree.itreetools.org/#/) which is even simpler to use.
You could also try to putting together some sort of matrix or table of common species and their relative numbers needed using something like i-Tree Planting (https://planting.itreetools.org/). This may be challenging in your case because you don't know the size of the tree being replaced. The i-Tree tools are periodically updated which may further impact the results you get.
Unfortunately the modeling of tree growth and benefits is somewhat complicated and the tools are currently about as simple as we can make them without losing too much accuracy.
Thanks for your question and good luck with the project.
-Jason
A member of the i-Tree Team
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