West Hollywood Launches Project to Plant 3,000 Trees
West Hollywood is embarking on a project to plant about 3,000 trees on residential streets by 2000, with the hopes that the new foliage will improve the environment and bring residents together.
The West Hollywood City Council approved a motion Monday directing its Landscape and Building Maintenance Division to work with the Public Safety and Public Information divisions to coordinate the Trees 2000 program.
For the record:
12:00 a.m. July 18, 1996 For the Record
Los Angeles Times Thursday July 18, 1996 Home Edition Metro Part B Page 5 Metro Desk 1 inches; 26 words Type of Material: Correction
West Hollywood--A story in Tuesday’s Metro section incorrectly said the mayor of West Hollywood is Steve Martin. Martin is a city councilman. Paul Koretz is West Hollywood’s mayor.
“We’ve had informal tree-planting programs for several years, but now we’ve set goals that we think are both ambitious and attainable,” Mayor Steve Martin said. “We’ve found that people in the residential neighborhoods are concerned about the quality of life and amount of green space. Trees play such an important role in softening the urban landscape.”
Martin said he hopes to keep the initial costs of Trees 2000 “really low” by relying on donations from nurseries and TreePeople, a nonprofit environmental organization that facilitates tree plantings.
“The idea is to rely on volunteer labor so the community feels it has an investment,” Martin said. “There’s nothing better for a neighborhood than for people to point to a tree and say they planted it.”
There are 11 acres of parkland in the 1.9-square-mile city and the small residential lots allow for few trees.
