The reason Charlotte’s grand tree canopy goal didn’t stand a chance

In Charlotte we love our trees. We’re the City of Trees, with majestic oaks, shady yards and tree-lined streets.

So it was easy to see why the city in 2011 set a goal: By 2050, 50% of its land would have a tree canopy. Canopy measures then showed trees covering 49% of land. We were nationally recognized for our tree cover. Maybe 50% didn’t seem a tough stretch.

Yet by 2018, the latest measure, the canopy was down to 45%. It’s still shrinking.

Was “50 by 50” an “aspirational’ goal — you hope to lose 30 pounds but only lose 20? Or just a feel-good PR move? Even then, though I hoped I was wrong, to me it seemed delusional. Given Charlotte’s growth boom, it would require tougher policies and ordinances — in a city in love with its own growth.

As Gavin Off’s excellent package in the Observer last week reported, city officials now concede the 50% goal can’t be reached. I’m amazed it took them this long.

Don’t get me wrong, I love trees. Their value to the environment and our collective mental health is immense: They slow stormwater and erosion, easing flooding and water pollution. They help clear air pollutants and greenhouse gases. They cool hot cities. They’re habitat for many living things, from birds to bugs to our undervalued fungal networks. And they soothe our souls.

But that pride in Charlotte’s canopy a decade ago ignored realities:

First, thanks to annexation, city territory included big tracts of undeveloped, tree-covered spaces the city expected to be developed, predictably shrinking the canopy.

Second, Charlotte is young and much of it is large-lot suburbia: half- or third-of-an-acre lawns with trees. Our sprawl gave us a lot of tree canopy.

But lot by lot, many neighborhoods have been changing. Small houses are bulldozed, their lots clear-cut to make way for larger houses or infill development.

City policies, including the new 2040 Plan, promote some important goals such as more city-style building — walkable, transit-friendly areas, denser housing, etc. – not expansive lawns. That affects tree cover.

Finally, our trees are falling to old age, insect damage (those oak-munching cankerworms) and stress from storms, drought and air pollution. The city replants street trees but they take decades to grow. The city’s tree program and the nonprofit Trees Charlotte, which also plants trees, can’t keep up with tree loss.

To move beyond feel-good PR, the city should truly support its canopy goal. Such as:

▪ Requiring significant tree save and dedicated public park land for any new subdivision development, especially greenfield.

▪ Enacting tougher rules against clear-cutting, including single-lot construction. The tree ordinance requires saving a small percentage of trees (10% or 15%) for subdivisions. That ignores lot-by-lot destruction from tear-downs. The proposed new development ordinance would slightly raise tree-save requirements and require a permit to cut certain large trees. Good. Not enough.

▪ Funding ways to help private property owners preserve, care for and replace trees.

Those measures would nibble away at tree loss. But the elephant in the room is our dearth of parks. City parks help make up for the lack of lawns. But Charlotte lags most peer cities for parks, annually ranking at or near the bottom of the Trust for Public Land’s annual Park Score rating, comparing poorly even to extremely urban places like New York. Our government structure may be part of the problem. The city can worry about trees, but it has no park department; it gave it to Mecklenburg County in 1992.

It’s appropriate to mourn Charlotte’s shrinking tree canopy. But what we should also mourn is the lack of official will to do enough about it.

Newsom is a free-lance writer in Charlotte, formerly director of Urban Policy Initiatives at the UNC Charlotte Urban Institute, and a former Observer associate editor.