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Mountain View is taking steps to adopt a biodiversity and urban forest plan that will serve as a road map to help the city protect and manage trees, wildlife and sensitive habitats for years to come. If adopted, the plan would be the first of its kind in the Bay Area, according to the city.
The Parks and Recreation Commission reviewed the framework last week, praising its scientific approach and emphasis on community priorities, while raising concerns about its implementation.
“(It does) a great job of capturing where Mountain View is right now and would lead us where we need to go,” Commissioner Steve Filios said at the Wednesday, Oct. 8 meeting.
But commissioners also voiced concern that the plan might not carry enough clout for its goals to come to fruition, given the city’s many funding priorities and constrained resources.
“What this plan lacks most is urgency,” Commissioner Jonathan Davis said. “A lot of the language and the description is very couched in conditional statements, and I think there just needs to be more stakes in the ground.”
Prepared by the San Francisco Estuary Institute, the plan is a nearly 200-page document that describes key environmental priorities to boost Mountain View’s biodiversity and tree canopy. It lists recommended actions, like developing native plant guides, establishing priority areas for habitat restoration and partnering with local organizations to support more tree plantings.
But while the plan is meant to guide the city, it is not a regulatory or policy document. It does not include cost estimates, funding strategies or a detailed timeline, according to Brenda Sylvia, the city’s assistant community services director.
Commissioner Ronit Bryant expressed concern that the document lacked accountability by not including these details. “While I like the plan, I think there’s a danger of nothing much happening,” she said, noting that it would be too easy to give up on implementing the action items by saying they are not feasible.
A “tree-centric” plan
Public commentators similarly commended the plan’s objectives but questioned its implementation, especially with respect to how it would account for biodiversity and tree management on private properties. According to the city, land cover data in Mountain View shows that private trees make up nearly 90% of the urban forest, but the plan mostly focuses on public land.
“I don’t see how the plan can actually avoid not addressing private land and private development,” Mountain View resident Daniel Shane said. He also voiced concern that the city was focused too much on planting new trees rather than preserving what already exists.
Commissioner Joe Mitchner urged city staff to include an action item about trees on private properties. It’s important to have an understanding of the composition and mix of these trees, he said, noting that they comprise a big part of the city’s urban tree canopy.
Commissioners also noted that it would be tricky to select trees that “checked all the boxes,” in terms of being native and climate-resilient, not creating too many allergens and not leaving too much debris on sidewalks and bike pathways.
Commissioner Davis, while in favor of the plan, described it as “tree-centric” with fewer action items to improve wildlife biodiversity. There are some bird-related items in the plan but not much else, he said.
The breadth of the plan meanwhile concerned Commissioner Sandy Sommer.
“It’s sort of everywhere all at once, and we all know that’s just not possible,” she said, recommending that the city hone in on its locational priorities and identify a couple pilot projects to get things going.
The other commissioners similarly expressed a strong desire to jumpstart the plan, moving it from ideas to reality as quickly as possible.
“The sense of immediacy, it’s urgent. We need to do it now,” Bryant said. The public will have another chance to weigh in on the biodiversity and urban forest plan at an Environmental Planning Commission meeting on Wednesday, Oct. 15. Ideas and feedback also can be submitted on the city’s website. The City Council is expected to vote on the plan in June, according to the staff report.
Emily’s article covering the PRC meeting on the draft Biodiversity & Urban Forestry Plan was very informative and accurate. The major challenge is the trade-off between the need for more housing development and the preservation of the remaining but limited natural remnant urban forest ecosystem distributed in a patchwork of woodlands and wildlife habitat on private lands. There are opportunities such as the park land dedication ordinance and forest land acquisition for significant community benefit, incentives and concessions to developers who practice good environmental stewardship, and early planning and design interventions that require developers to place the footprint and structures away from natural living forest ecosystems and other important natural resources.
I searched through the document and found no mention of crows. The increasing number of crows definitely impact the biodiversity of our city. Much less birdsong than there used to be.