AGENDA REPORT
Meeting Date
July 22, 2025
Study Session
SUBJECT: DISCUSSION OF PUBLIC TREES, TREE MAINTENANCE PRACTICES RECOMMENDATION: It is recommended that the City Council:
1. Receive a presentation from staff regarding public tree maintenance practices: and
2. Discuss public trees, public tree maintenance practices and provide further direction.
SUMMARY OF THE MATTER
This report provides an overview of the City's public tree maintenance practices. The City manages approximately 3,300 public trees in parks, medians, sidewalks, and other public spaces, using a structured pruning and inspection cycle led by the City Arborist. These practices ensure long-term tree health, safety, and environmental benefits for the community.
DISCUSSION
Overview:
The Public Works & Utilities Department employs a proactive and structured approach to managing the City's public trees through a comprehensive inspection and pruning cycle carried out by contractors working under the direction of the City Arborist. The City Arborist integrates work planning, maintenance history, and analytics through a web-based GIS software program. All public trees are inspected and pruned generally on a biennial (once every 2 years) cycle. The pruning cycle starts each year in October and ends in June. The City is divided into three maintenance sections: Downtown, North, and South pruning sections.
The Downtown section trees are inspected and pruned annually. The North section consists of public trees located north of Broadway Street, and the South section consists of public trees located south of Park A venue. The North and South sections are pruned in alternating years, along with all Downtown section trees. This structure ensures that every City-maintained tree receives inspection and at least one form of pruning maintenance every two years, with specific trees (palms as one example) receiving annual attention due to species characteristics, location, or other considerations.
The City's approach to maintenance is, as noted, grounded in proper arboriculture practices. It is also guided by the City's Landscape and Scenic Highways Resource Document (LSHRD), introduced in 1995 Attachment 1
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and updated in 2018. Aspects of the LSHRD are referred to in the City's Landscape and Scenic Highways Element (LSHE) which is part of the City's General Plan.
Discussion:
The City Arborist utilizes several pruning strategies conforming to International Society of Arboriculture (ISA) best management practices and the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) A300 pruning standards that are considered appropriate to an individual's species, maturity, condition, and site considerations. These include crown cleaning, crown raising, crown thinning, structural pruning, crown restoration, clearance pruning, and crown reduction.
Often, a resident or business owner, will request a tree be pruned for the purpose of view enhancement, and they may specifically request that the City Arborist employ "Topping" or "Crown Reduction" as the pruning method. Two locations that receive these requests on a frequent basis are the Eucalyptus trees along Glenneyre adjacent to the Glenneyre Parking Structure, and the Eucalyptus trees along Coast Highway adjacent to the Montage.
Tree "topping" is defined as the indiscriminate reduction of a tree's height or spread by cutting branches to stubs or lateral branches not capable of assuming apical control. This method removes significant live tissue without regard for natural structure or physiology. Topping results in the rapid growth of weakly attached shoots, exposure oflarge wounds prone to decay, and a loss of stored energy reserves. Topping significantly reduces tree health, decreases the tree's ability to defend against pests and wood-decaying fungi, increases the likelihood of tree failure, and permanently disfigures the tree's structure. This pruning strategy does not conform to the ISA best management practices or ANSI A300 pruning standards, and therefore, is not used by City staff or its contractors on publicly maintained trees.
Crown reduction is a structured and deliberate pruning method used to reduce the height or spread of a tree by selectively cutting back to strong, viable lateral branches capable of assuming apical dominance. A proper reduction cut removes a branch or stem back to a lateral that is at least one-third of the diameter of the removed portion. Crown reduction is an appropriate treatment only in specific circumstances. This is most commonly performed when the tree is experiencing physiological stress or is in a state of decline.
Crown reduction can act as a preservation strategy to extend the functional lifespan of the tree while mitigating risk by removing dead, dying, diseased, and poorly attached tissue across the outer portions of the crown. This is often accompanied by other supportive maintenance practices and/or chemical treatments to support preservation of the tree. Other instances where crown reductions are warranted are post-failure responses when part of the crown has failed and the remaining crown must be rebalanced or structurally stabilized and unavoidable conflicts with buildings or infrastructure when tree removal is not a viable option. It is not appropriate to use for aesthetic reshaping, view enhancement, or convenience-based requests because of the negative consequences to otherwise healthy trees stated above.
The LSHRD provides maintenance guidance, too - including:
• Noting the importance of following ANSI A300 standards • "Pruning should not be done solely to reduce the overall height of a tree or to keep the tree at an arbitrary height or spread."
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• "Topping disfigures the tree, severely depletes the tree's food making ability, and renders the tree vulnerable to pests and diseases.
The LSHRD also speaks to tree species along both Coast Highway and Broadway/SR-133. Recommended Street Trees within the LSHRD include (the below is a selected list), but are not limited to:
• For the Downtown highway sections (Broadway, Coast Highway), Silver Dollar Gum, Desert Gum, NZ Christmas Tree, Brisbane Box, Red Flowering Gum, Coral Gum, and Lemon Scented Gum. • For Legion to Cress (PCH): Silver Dollar Gum, NZ Christmas Tree, Brisbane Box, Torrey Pine • For Cress to Cardinal (PCH): Silver Dollar Gum, NZ Christmas Tree, Brisbane Box, Torrey Pine. • For Cardinal to Lang Park: Sugar Gum, Red-Flowering Gum, Torrey Pine The Landscape and Scenic Highways Element (to the General Plan) also suggests:
Policy 1.4 Ensure that the Laguna Beach landscape will continue to include large mature trees, including eucalyptus, cypress, pines, cedars, palms, and others. Foster preservation of existing large trees.
Action 1. 4.1 Update design guidelines to provide for large trees to remain and be planted at select locations pursuant to Land Use Element Policy 2. 6. (Implementation: Short-term) Action 1. 4. 2 Because large mature trees are important to community character, discourage the trade-off of approving new building development that blocks views. (Implementation: Short-term) Policy 2.2 Promote improved long-term pruning techniques to enhance neighborhood views, promote tree health, and produce safe and natural tree form.
Action 2. 2.1 Develop and disseminate a pruning guide for the public, utilities, and tree pruners. (Implementation: Mid-term)
Action 2.2.2 Consider development guidelines and regulations that promote appropriate pruning and discourage severe pruning practices. See action 8.18.1. (Implementation: Mid-term) The Public Works & Utilities Department prunes public trees for the purpose of encouraging healthy growth, tree preservation, and hazard/risk mitigation; pruning public trees for the sole purpose of view enhancement is not recommended. Pruning performed to create or restore views typically causes structural and physiological harm to trees. Public complaints or requests for view-based pruning are evaluated by the City Arborist, and taken into consideration when providing pruning specifications to the City's tree maintenance contractor. However, pruning for the sole purpose of enhancing a- scenic view is not a justification for topping a shade tree or performing crown reduction, unless one of the outlined conditions applies. Combined with long-term consistent maintenance, view equity in these cases is often improved through normal maintenance operations, including crown thinning and crown raising.
Issues for the Council's discussion include, but are not limited to:
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1. Balancing requests from residents to improve ocean and other important views against tree health, as some of the requests suggest tree pruning methods that may be more unhealthy for the tree.
2. The cadence of discussions like these in the future, as well as whether the Council would like more input on and community awareness of the urban forest and the LSHRD/LSHE - including issues like the future of large Eucalyptus in our community as trees age and fire concerns continue. For example, the LSHE suggests " ... an annual audit to the Planning Commission and City Council of tree-related decisions" (Action 2.3.2)
3. Whether the Council would like to consider the development of an Urban Forest Management Plan in the future to consolidate policy, maintenance standards, species selection, canopy goals, view management strategies, and funding needs in a single document.
4. How the City might include updated species selection priorities, such as climate adaptation, drought tolerance, and fire safety, within a future Urban Forest Management Plan, to help guide future updates to City standards, planting guidelines, and maintenance documents.
5. Opportunities to enhance public education and outreach, including how residents can understand pruning standards, best practices, and options for preserving views without harming tree health.
FINANCIAL ANALYSIS
The recommended actions have no financial impact to the budget at this time.
ENVIRONMENTAL ANALYSIS
The proposed actions are not considered projects, and therefore, not subject to the California Environmental Quality Act review.
Report Prepared By: Coordinated With:
Matthew Barker, City Arborist Reza Jafari, Deputy Director of Public Works 7