Feasibility Study: Making a Revenue Generating Biogenic Public Utility a Reality (03-DG-11244225-427)

This project addressed funding for urban forestry in Kent, OH based on the value of trees in urban settings.

This project addressed the notion of justifying funding for the municipal urban forestry program in Kent, Ohio based on the economic value of the environmental benefits provided by the trees. The tools used to measure benefits were the USDA Forest Service UFORE and STRATUM models (see www.itreetools.org). The estimated economic value of the public trees in Kent, OH is $893,460 per year- a benefit to cost ratio of 4 to 1. This includes environmental benefits of airpollution mitigation ($32,800/year), carbon sequestration ($8,460/year), stormwater interception ($755,600/year) and energy conservation ($96,600/year). In addition, undeveloped areas of the city were semi-quantitatively ranked based on ecological integrity. Nearly half of these areas received high scores and deserve consideration for conservation and/or preservation. A draft City ordinance was presented to establish a Biogenic Public Utility allows fees to be assessed exclusively for urban forestry management, planning, and maintenance. An alternative proposal was to incorporate urban forestry into the existing Stormwater Utility ordinance and use aproportion of the assessed fees for urban forestry. Basing funding levels on the actual environmental benefits provided by the trees is feasible with the models available at this time but the political feasibility is yet to be determined.

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