City staff outline 12-step plan to expand street trees and green infrastructure in Austin rights of way

City arborists and transportation staff on Oct. 1 briefed the Austin Environmental Commission on a 12-recommendation plan intended to make street trees an integral, managed part of the city’s right of way.

The presentation — led by Naomi Rochmel, the city arborist for Austin Development Services, and Michelle Marks, a transportation officer with Austin Transportation Public Works — summarized work by a Technical Advisory Review Panel (TARP) formed after a City Council resolution to identify barriers to street trees and recommend code, manual and program changes.

The TARP’s recommendations are organized as a sequence the panel says should be addressed from regulatory foundations to maintenance and then capital planning. “One of the key issues is heat mitigation … on average 10 degrees cooler,” Naomi Rochmel said, describing the immediate cooling benefits of trees. “Trees are infrastructure. They're the only infrastructure that increases in value as it ages if properly maintained,” she added.

Why it matters

Panel members told commissioners the city’s existing regulatory and administrative framework spreads rules across multiple criteria manuals and code sections, which creates inefficiency and confusion for applicants and staff. The TARP report recommends consolidating right-of-way standards in the Transportation Criteria Manual (TCM), producing standard drawings and product lists for tree pits and soil cells, and updating utility-clearance rules to permit more flexible placement when modern planting techniques (root barriers, soil cells) are used.

Key recommendations

The working group's 12 recommendations presented to the commission include: - Update the Transportation Criteria Manual (TCM) to clearly define the sidewalk corridor and consolidate right-of-way tree requirements. - Adopt standard specifications and drawings for tree pits, tree trenches, irrigation and soil cells to give practitioners a…