{"id":4008,"date":"2020-09-21T18:52:16","date_gmt":"2020-09-21T18:52:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/9thstreetjournal.org\/?p=4008"},"modified":"2023-03-27T15:52:17","modified_gmt":"2023-03-27T15:52:17","slug":"durhams-plan-to-plant-1500-trees-a-year-may-face-funding-development-challenges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/9thstreetjournal.org\/2020\/09\/21\/durhams-plan-to-plant-1500-trees-a-year-may-face-funding-development-challenges\/","title":{"rendered":"Durham’s plan to plant 1,500 trees a year may face funding, development challenges"},"content":{"rendered":"
For almost three years now, the city of Durham has committed to planting <\/span>1,500 trees<\/span><\/a> a year, nearly all of them in low-income communities.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The city\u2019s initiative to add more street trees is an effort to maintain Durham\u2019s canopy and address historic discrimination that extended even to the ground between streets and sidewalks.<\/span><\/p>\n But this ambitious program faces questions about how it will be funded, and whether the rapid development in Durham\u2019s booming real estate market will uproot trees as quickly as new ones are planted.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThe city is doing more and they have this goal,\u201d said Katie Rose Levin, executive director of TreesDurham<\/a>, an advocacy group. \u201cIt’s just a matter of \u2018Now that you know the right thing to do, you actually have to pay for it.\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n When the program was launched in 2018, the plan was to pay for it with a mix of private and public funds, according to Durham Mayor Steve Schewel.<\/span><\/p>\n Schewel said the city never intended to pay for the program by itself. \u201cI don’t think it’ll ever be true that there won\u2019t be private donations for tree planting,\u201d he said. \u201cBut I’m sure that the city will continue to fund more and more trees. I agree that we need to be increasing public funding for it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n