A local subcommittee focused on trees and shade is still deliberating over the next steps to combat the urban heat island problem – without allowing much opportunity for public input.
The new Urban Heat Island/Trees and Shade Subcommittee schedules public meetings at City Hall in the early afternoon.
It’s a time that’s difficult for many everyday residents who might be interested attending, according to subcommittee member and certified arborist Nicole Rodriguez.
“I think this would be better served during a time of day in a location that’s easier for more of the public to come and speak,” she said at the start of the discussion.
The urban heat island problem is when cities experience significantly higher temperatures than surrounding rural areas due to human activity. The subcommittee is focused on ways to increase shade canopy coverage in Phoenix from 12 percent to 25 percent by the year 2030.
It’s a topic interesting to Rodriguez and many local residents. But no independent members of the public, who weren’t in some way connected to a government entity or organization, attended this month’s meeting.
But it was the public’s keen interest in the issue of tree and shade coverage that led to the creation of this subcommittee in the first place, just a few months ago. In April an ad-hoc group of concerned residents presented Phoenix City Council with a petition to create a council-backed tree and shade committee, according to The Arizona Republic.
Instead, they were granted this subcommittee, now officially part of the city’s Environmental Quality and Sustainability Commission. The eight-person subcommittee will spend the next few months continuing to deliberate on ways Phoenix can achieve more of the goals outlined in a Tree and Shade Master Plan approved by the city in 2010. The group’s goal is to submit its recommendations to the city in March 2019.
Although there wasn’t a public presence at this month’s meeting, anyone who works or lives in the downtown area can tell you about the shade downtown – or lack thereof.
“There is none,” said Mesa resident Ray Martin, a construction worker waiting for the bus at Central Avenue Station late Thursday afternoon.
His shirt drenched in sweat, Martin gestured to a cluster of benches just outside of the small, covered shelter area he stood under.
“[The city] removed it here. It used to be covered all over this side,” he said. “Benches are now exposed, and we’re down to just these little cubicles.”
The need for heat relief in the city has been researched by scientists for decades – and they recommend investing in more trees to address the issue.
But not everyone in Phoenix knows about the existence of the Tree and Shade Master Plan, let alone the new subcommittee dedicated to enhancing canopy coverage in Phoenix and educating developers on sustainable practices for tree removal and replanting.
Timothy Smith, director of facilities management for Arizona State University’s downtown campus, oversees the maintenance of trees and vegetation on campus property as part of his job. He said he’d never heard of either the subcommittee or the Master Plan.
But he said he understands that downtown’s rapid development over the last 10 years has made trees and shade an even more challenging issue for city government to address.
“I think that it wasn’t intentional that people weren’t thinking about it before,” he said.
Phoenix’s population boom over the last decade has intensified the urban heat island effect.
The subcommittee’s very creation demonstrates that some people in Phoenix with expertise and influence are invested in developing shade coverage to address the urban heat island effect. The question is whether it’s happening quickly enough and with enough accessibility for the general public to get involved.
Volunteer Phoenix Program Facilitator Michelle Litwin, who spends part of her working hours coordinating the city’s Citizen Forestry program, attended yesterday’s meeting. She said she’s invested in educating the the public on how it can help improve Phoenix’s tree landscape with initiatives like sustainable tree planting and care.
“I just like seeing the city and… community members interact and take each other’s considerations into account and seeing how we can work together,” she said.
Sarah Porter, co-chair of the subcommittee, agreed to relay back to the commission Rodriguez’s suggestion to hold future meetings at times and places that are more accessible to working community members, such as the Burton Barr Central Library.
The next public subcommittee meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, Oct. 11 at 1 p.m. at City Hall.
Contact the reporter at mduerig@asu.edu.
