The Urban Forest : Trees Soften Harshness of Cityscape but They Aren’t Cheap Quick Fix

Brenda is a short, stumpy drug addict who lives on downtown Los Angeles’ Skid Row. Last winter she found a couple of friends.

One is Peter Lassen, a wheelchair-bound Vietnam War veteran who is head architect and planner for SRO Housing Corp., set up by the Community Redevelopment Agency to refurbish run-down hotels and turn them into low-rent housing.

The other is a tree.

When Lassen’s outfit planted sycamores and bradford pears on a couple of blocks near 5th and San Julian streets, Brenda adopted one. She waters it regularly. She even named it.

“I named this tree for you and me, Pete,” she told Lassen one day. “I call it the Short People’s Tree.”

Brenda’s interest illustrates how trees affect people in poor and posh areas of a downtown dominated by concrete, marble, stucco and glass, Lassen and other planners believe.

“They soften the hard scape,” said Robert W. Kennedy, superintendent of the city’s Street Tree Division.

According to Kennedy’s rough estimate, Los Angeles has the largest “urban forest” in America, consisting of about 600,000 trees. If Mayor Tom Bradley has his way, the city may get another 2 million to 5 million in the next few years.

Although there are no precise figures, with the city divided into six districts, downtown alone may already have up to 100,000 trees. Whatever the number, planners agree that trees can be even more important to the city when planted downtown than in a suburban back yard.

Asphalt Streets Humanized

“It is a very hard-edge city down there with asphalt streets, concrete curbs and windows stuccoed in for security,” Lassen said of Skid Row. “Trees soften that, humanize it, add to the human scale.”

And a few blocks west, in the wealthier central business district, trees also soften gleaming glass and steel skyscrapers.

“Just the aesthetics of trees means we might all be a little calmer and coexist better,” said attorney John H. Welborne, chairman of the CRA’s Open Space Task Force for downtown.

Trees also provide shade, reduce energy bills by shading buildings and cars, and clean the air by absorbing carbon dioxide and giving off pure oxygen. But the harsh downtown environment poses special hazards.

Kennedy estimates the life span of a downtown tree at 20 years compared to about 30 for the same variety planted in suburbia.

Except for a few native sycamores and oaks, every tree in Los Angeles was planted by somebody, according to Treeland Nursery President John Boething.

Some of downtown’s trees--including many of the city’s 50,000 palms, which can live for 200 years--were planted for the 1932 Olympics. Several thousand more were planted in the 1960s by businesses persuaded to do so by Los Angeles Beautiful.

A major hurdle, Los Angeles Beautiful learned, is economics.

It costs more to plant a tree downtown--about $300 compared to $100 for a suburban area even with wholesale prices and volunteer labor, estimates Andy Lipkis, president of the nonprofit group TreePeople.

Kennedy, who said it costs $309 to $460 for the city to plant a tree and $59 to maintain it for five years citywide, said a developer’s cost to plant a tree downtown can reach $2,000 to $3,000.

The cost of planting is increased by a lack of space for roots. Basements are often built all the way to the street property line and underground utility pipes further restrict space, said John Spalding, CRA director of planning and urban design. So most downtown trees must be put in pots or “boxes” cut into concrete and surrounded with costly concrete or metal grates.

Then there is the problem of vandalism.

When Lassen planted his trees in the heart of Skid Row, a man forcibly ousted from an SRO lobby for smoking crack retaliated by hacking down five of the new trees with a machete.

“There are always people who will vandalize trees,” said Gail Watson, executive director of Los Angeles Beautiful. “I don’t think it’s because they don’t like trees, but because they don’t like their (own) life.”

Some owners of small businesses have hacked off tree limbs or taken out whole trees, Kennedy said, because the foliage obscures their signs or window displays.

Kennedy said the city prosecutes whenever possible. One man who removed eight oak trees, he said, wound up paying $40,000 in fines and another $8,000 to replace the trees.

And there are accidents. Some trees are badly damaged when cars hit them.

Downtown trees also must endure soot or dirt from traffic, Kennedy said, although smog is less a concern than many people believe. Other difficulties include lack of water, lack of sunshine because of skyscraper shading and harsh soil.

Under the city’s Master Plan for Street Trees, every downtown developer with property fronting a street must plant trees every 40 feet along parkways--or pay Kennedy’s department to do it.

Kennedy is charged with approving the type of tree to be planted, issuing a permit, and, after planting, maintaining the trees--watering, weeding, pruning--for five years as well as replacing those that die. After that, the tree is considered mature enough to survive on its own on ground water or Los Angeles’ limited rainfall.

Although Kennedy gets high marks from advocates for improving the city’s tree-maintenance program, problems still exist.

“The city of Los Angeles just hasn’t got the funds to take care of (its) trees,” said veteran landscape architect Raymond Page, a founder of Los Angeles Beautiful who landscaped the city of Beverly Hills and commends that city, as well as Glendale, for good tree maintenance.

4 Die for Each New Tree

The Street Tree Division plants 2,000 trees a year to replace dead ones. But Boething and Lipkis say the city still reflects the American Forestry Assn.’s finding that four trees die or are removed for every one planted in the country’s urban forests.

Kennedy has put pruning of city trees on a regular street-by-street schedule, reducing the cycle from once every 16.5 years to every six years. Although that’s great progress, Lipkis says, trees need individual care--some need pruning more frequently and some, like most pines, never need it.

After rejecting it twice, the City Council last July approved funding for an inventory of the city’s trees which Kennedy says will help his department give better care. The inventory will not only count the trees, but computerize each tree’s variety, location, condition and health so that pruning and other care can be provided as needed.

Proper Care Crucial

Proper care is vital, Lipkis said, if Los Angeles is to participate, as Bradley has urged, in the American Forestry Assn.’s “Global Releaf” program to plant 100 million urban trees nationwide in the next few years.

In the proposal TreePeople has just completed for Los Angeles, which is being reviewed by Kennedy and other city officials, Lipkis urges individuals and neighborhoods to plant and maintain trees. Downtown, the burden most likely will fall on developers and existing businesses.

Fortunately for advocates of massive tree planting, downtown developers and businessmen see tree planting as making good economic sense.

“Beautification is good business,” said Watson, reiterating the battle cry Los Angeles Beautiful has used persuasively for four decades. “We always say what will improve a city environment more than anything else is to put in trees.”

Despite the $2,000 to $3,000 price tag, a downtown tree can add $3,000 to $5,000 to the value of a property, Kennedy said.

“Businessmen are realizing that their customers and employees like trees,” Kennedy said.