2014-08-14-TREE-min - Laserfiche WebLink

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Lexington Tree Committee Town of Lexington, Massachusetts 201 Bedford Street, Samuel Hadley Public Services Building, Room 125 Minutes, Meeting of August 14, 2014 Attendees: John Frey (Chairman), Jewel Kuljian, Gerry Paul, Anne Senning, Chris Filadoro, (Superintendant of Public Grounds). Absent: Karen Longeteig, Nell Walker, Jim Wood. Gerry Paul took his turn as scribe. 1. Minutes of the July 10, 2014 meeting were approved as amended. 2. Tree removal activity – 1034 sites; trees to 1662/1355 removed; inches to be removed/9836 removed; 7307 trees to be planted/ 3363 planted. 3. Town Tree Inventory plan – Chris is still researching contractors to finish the tree inventory. 4. Chris reported that the 4 remaining Tulip Trees have been planted. He will send an email with the locations. 5. Spring Tree planting – ordering for Fall 2014 planting/planning for spring – discussion postponed. 6. Anne presented the following analysis updated with comments from the meeting: Cost benefit analysis: setback trees vs. street trees Setback trees: The advantages of planting setback trees are the following; they can be planted far back from the street so that they avoid overhead wires, salt spray, salt damage from plows both on the roads and sidewalks and can be planted in areas that allow root growth and in non- compact soil. Another advantage is that in the contract that Lexington DPW enters into with the homeowner the tree becomes the property of the homeowner after a year of successful growth. The disadvantage of a setback tree is the very time-consuming and labor intensive initial work involved in the set up during the 1 year: the contract, placement of the tree, selection of the st species, negotiations both by phone and by e-mail with the homeowner and the planting the tree. Street trees: the advantages of planting street trees are the following; they can be planted in the planting strips which are at least 4 feet wide where there are no wires, or in parks, cemeteries, conservation land, or other public town land. The initial selection of species, and placement of trees does not always need to involve individual homeowners and is therefore less labor intensive than the initial setup of setback trees. Once a tree has been planted the town has jurisdiction over the tree and no homeowner may cut it down without a penalty.