Draft Street Tree Strategy

Thanks to everyone who provided feedback. The City aims to have all of your feedback reviewed and the draft strategy finalised towards the end of 2019.

The Street Tree Strategy was approved by Council at the meeting held on Monday 24 July. As a result of the endorsement for the document, we are now going to move forward and commence its implementation.

The engagement period for this project has now closed. The City is currently reviewing all feedback and a report detailing the results of this consultation will be presented to the City Parks and Recreation Committee in July 2017.

The Council has prepared a strategy for establishing and caring for street trees throughout Hobart.

The purposes of the strategy is to:

• build an understanding and appreciation of the value street trees can bring to the City (Section 2);
• evaluate the current condition of existing street trees (Section 3);
• champion a vision and principles for moving towards a greener city with an expansive tree canopy to take full advantage of potential benefits to the community (Section 4);
• institute policies to guide decision makers (Section 5);
• highlight the mechanisms to ensure these policies can be enacted to provide the best return on investment from their implementation (Section 6); and
• recommend a 5 year implementation plan to progress the aspirations of the strategy (Section 7).

The preparation of the City's Draft Street Tree Strategy has involved a comprehensive review of previous studies and relevant strategies, as well as a community engagement program involving City officers, individuals, community groups and private stakeholders.

In developing this strategy, Hobart joins cities around the world that are discovering the need to give greater attention to the establishment and care for urban forests, and in particular street trees. Like Hobart, these places recognise the value of thriving street trees and the need to link these benefits to their specific contexts and the types of challenges those local governments face. While focusing on the next 5 years, the strategy will have benefits that will mature for 50-100 years as the trees planted now come of age.