By Jason Islas
Lookout Staff

December 13, 211 -- The proposed Urban Forest Master Plan the Santa Monica City Council will take up Tuesday night should become a model for other cities, forestry officials said.

“This is a standard-setting master plan,” said Community Forester Walt Warriner, adding that when other cities decide to update their urban forest master plans, they will look to Santa Monica's as a model.

“What makes this different is that it's a long-range plan,” he said. “It's meant to transcend future managers of the forest.”

The document, which includes a street-by-street breakdown of the trees planted throughout the city of Santa Monica, is the result of a year and a half of community input and concerted effort of city staff and the Urban Forest Master Plan Task Force.

It also designates replacement trees for current trees if they should become diseased or start dying. The process of selecting replacement trees – which was done with extensive community input – was sometimes contentious.

“When there are trees involved, everyone has their passion,” Warriner said.

One thing that was revealed during the community input process was that Santa Monicans are passionate about their palms.

Originally, Warriner and staff were hoping to fill out Santa Monica's palm-lined streets with trees with wider canopies, interspersed between the palms or completely replacing them.

Residents, some of whom had formed a "palm" coalition," turned out in force at community meetings to defend the tall slender species with tiny canopies.

“I think [the palms] make Santa Monica Santa Monica,” one resident said to applause at a meeting in September.

At the same meeting, Taffy Patton from the 19th Street Palm Coalition told the Urban Forest Master Plan Task Force, “We adore our palms.”

In response to the outcry, the Task Force changed the plan to make sure that certain streets did not lose their palm trees.

“We determined that there were certain streets where the palms contributed to the character of the streets,” said Warriner.

But part of the plan is to increase tree diversity in Santa Monica.

If approved by the Council Tuesday, the plan will transform the urban forest in Santa Monica over the next 50 years.

“It's a living document that will be updated regularly,” said Warriner.