Tree Management Effort Takes Root in Some Cities : Environment: Municipal planners and residents, many of whom see UCI campus as a model, have started sophisticated ‘urban forest’ programs to provide cooler, cleaner and more livable areas.

As a young graduate student in the early 1970s, Peter Bowler would walk through the center of UC Irvine and think of it as “Planet Irvine” because of its stark, open terrain.

Today, Bowler gives “tree tours” of the same area, which is now a wooded park. In fact, the entire main campus, which less than 30 years ago was a large tract of treeless ranchland, now reflects careful planning and planting, with the park at its center and cool, shaded areas between buildings.

Now, planners and residents in several Orange County cities, pointing to UC Irvine as a model, want to apply the same type of careful planning to their own streets and parks in hopes of creating cooler, better-looking and more livable cities. Alarmed by the rate at which trees were being cut down, and noticing that many weren’t being replaced, Costa Mesa, Anaheim, Fullerton and others decided to start managing their trees as a comprehensive “urban forest.”

“We need to manage the entire forest of the city,” said Christopher K. Jarvi, Anaheim’s director of parks, recreation and community services. Cities are finding that good tree management provides both environmental and economic benefits: increased land values, more attractive and cooler streets, wind control and removal of dust and carbon dioxide from the air.

The planners say many residents will see the difference in their lifetimes. Bowler, now assistant director of student activities at UCI, said areas that used to be hot and unpleasant are now shady and cool.

“It really looked barren and lonely, and it’s been a wonderful personal experience to watch the trees on the campus mature and the real beauty of the campus develop,” he said.

UCI’s leafy environment came about largely through the efforts of founding chancellor Daniel G. Aldrich, a biologist who advocated the arboretum-like design.

Since 1990, more than 1,000 volunteers whose aim it is to create the same type of environment in Anaheim have planted almost 900 trees. The city also keeps a detailed database of information on its 45,000 trees, and plans to plant about 10,000 more by the year 2000.

Jarvi said that before the city started taking an organized approach to managing its trees, city crews spent considerable time responding to complaints.

“We’d get complaints and we’d go take care of that, and we weren’t managing the entire forest in any sort of regular fashion. What we can do now is program maintenance in advance.”

The computer database now keeps track of the city’s trees, showing each tree’s location, species and date it was last trimmed. The database also keeps track of when the tree will again need pruning, letting officials plan maintenance block by block and reducing complaints from residents. Similar databases are now being developed in Fullerton, Mission Viejo and other cities in the county.

“It allows me to make better decisions,” Jarvi said. “It’s just the way you’d run a business. If you have an inventory you have to maintain, you have to do it well.”

Some of the county’s most notable trees will be featured in a book to be published soon by the Tree Society of Orange County, said Bea Kight-Herbst, who is accepting nominations from the public for the book.

Older cities often have to spend larger amounts of time and money on maintaining their trees because many were planted without much thought to their mature size. Some may have been planted before the advent of widespread power and sewer lines, and now interfere with both.

Cities starting their own tree programs usually begin by employing an arborist, or tree expert. Among their skills, arborists like Alden Kelley of Fullerton appraise the worth of trees based on species, trunk diameter, health and cost of replacement. Kelley said he often arrives at values ranging from $10,000 to $100,000 per tree.

“It costs a whole lot to move and replace a big tree,” he said. “And (the value of a tree has) been validated in a number of court cases in California. The better the condition of the tree, the higher that value.” He cited one Beverly Hills developer who was sued for chopping down or cutting the tops off 17 trees on someone else’s property. The developer ended up paying more than $33,800 per tree.

Some newer cities in the southern portion of the county don’t have tree ordinances yet, or are facing more pressing budget priorities, but some still find ways to protect their trees.

Officials in Mission Viejo say they hope to get some tree ordinances on the books soon, and in the meantime have begun a computer program on their 20,000 trees. Jan Franie, the city’s parks superintendent, said his department frequently receives requests to cut trees to clear views, but he flatly refuses.

In a state still deep in recession, many cities are putting trees lower on the priority list. Robert Kennedy, street tree superintendent in Los Angeles, said he has only enough staff to keep up with emergency work and that the city is losing many more trees than are being replaced.

Even Anaheim has cut staff for its tree programs during the past year. Maria Cover, Anaheim’s tree coordinator, said the budget cuts have hurt but will not deter the city from its goals.

“We want to be able to inhabit our cities and create a more complete environment,” she said, “one that has all those elements people need to live and enjoy life.”