Village of Stewart Manor gets Tree City USA designation

The tree branches rising along Carlton Terrace in the Village of Stewart Manor spread over to the street to form vaulted arches creating leafy shade. As the leaves were turning yellow and orange last month, the village board enacted new laws to add a layer of protection to the canopy.

Stewart Manor and the Village of Hempstead last year became the latest municipalities on Long Island to be recognized as a Tree City USA, a designation granted by the Nebraska-based nonprofit Arbor Day Foundation.

"We have a beautiful tree canopy, so this was a project that we worked on for community beautification and development," said Rosaleen Shea, village manager. "These trees, many of them, are near a hundred years old."

The foundation told the board it needed to strengthen its existing code, which was weak, Shea said. The Stewart Manor board of trustees passed the new tree laws following a public hearing on Oct. 1.

Stewart Manor’s public works supervisor will now also be the village "Tree Supervisor," charged with preparing an annual plan for the written care, preservation and planting of trees and shrubs in parks, along streets and in other public areas, according to the text of the law that amended the village’s existing code.

The tree supervisor will also maintain a list of approved trees to be planted in the village, and the board of trustees will approve a comprehensive tree plan of the village, according to the new local law.

The law applies to trees on public property or in the "right of way" on private property, or those that have been planted by the village on private property, according to village attorney Benjamin Truncale Jr. The right of way, also called a utility strip, is generally a portion of street-facing private property where sidewalks and utility poles — and sometimes trees — are regulated by the municipality.

Trimming or removing the affected trees will require a permit from the village.

The amended code also increases penalties for violations of the tree code, from $250 to up to $1,500. The village also increased penalties for property owners who fail to remediate diseased or infested trees, from $250 to fines of up to $10,000 upon a third offense. 

"The overarching goal is to maintain some sort of preservation and to have some set of rules, uniform rules that just prevent people from haphazardly making a decision to cut down a tree," Truncale said. "We now have a chapter we can turn to and point to so that if we do have a problem, it's there, because in the past we didn't."

Last year the Village of Hempstead similarly amended its code, creating the title of Supervisor of Parks & Shade Trees to develop and update a plan for the care, preservation and planting of trees and shrubs along village streets and in public areas, according to the amendment.

More than two dozen municipalities on Long Island were recognized as a Tree City USA last year, according to foundation’s website. Municipalities must apply annually for the designation and some, like Lynbrook, have been recognized by the program for 40 years.

The Tree City USA designation was created on Arbor Day in 1976. It requires municipalities to adhere to four points every year to qualify:They must have a tree board or department overseeing them, have a community tree ordinance, spend at least $2 per capita on urban forestry and hold an Arbor Day celebration.

"It was started as a foundational program to get communities throughout the United States invested in thinking about trees in their communities and how those trees benefit the people that live in those communities," Eric North, program manager for urban forestry at the foundation said. "It's really a recognition of the work that people have done and are doing in their communities."

The foundation provides model ordinances to municipalities that wish to join the program, North said.

"The tree ordinance is an important part, to say that not only are the citizens of the community interested in trees and all the benefits trees can provide, but that the municipality actually wants to put some weight behind that interest," North said. 

North said that while the foundation doesn't provide direct grants, the Tree City USA designation can help municipalities with a proven track record obtain them from other sources.

"If they can already demonstrate that they're successfully working in another program and have met the standards of Tree City, that can really help them in their grant applications," North said.