Just a few minutes before the event started, the room was filled with vibrant energy, laughs and smiles. It was either excitement for trees or folks catching up. Or maybe it was a little bit of both.
Tree activists, Alameda County staff and residents gathered at San Lorenzo Library on Sept. 29 to get community feedback for the Urban Unincorporated Forest Plan (UUFP).
The project lead is Alameda County’s Community Development Agency (CDA), a planning department for the unincorporated communities of Ashland, Cherryland, Hayward Acres, San Lorenzo, Fairview and Castro Valley. The communities together have a population of about 130,000.
Ali Abbors, senior planner with CDA, said at the event the UUFP plan would include an inventory of trees in the unincorporated area and an assessment of the tree’s health, its age and the reviewing of tree ordinances. A draft of the UUFP is expected to be released to the public in summer 2027.
Groups working on the project include the county’s Tree Advisory Board (TAG) and nonprofits Forestr and Plantify. TAG is a group of people who live in unincorporated communities who are working on the UUFP and conducting outreach work.
The county’s goal is to raise the urban tree canopy coverage to 20% in each unincorporated community in Alameda County by 2050. A tree canopy includes the layers of branches and leaves that cover the ground when the trees are seen from above. Abbors said in an email that they are focusing on low canopy areas, which are San Lorenzo, Hayward Acres, Ashland, Cherryland and parts of Castro Valley. One way to increase the tree canopy is to plant more trees.
Abbors said at the workshop that trees are beneficial to the community and global climate change. “In Alameda County, urban heat is expected to increase fairly drastically, over the next decade or so. And that’s a direct result of climate change,” she said at the workshop. Shade from trees is known to decrease temperatures by four to six degrees Fahrenheit.
She continued, “As the climate warms, trees and the urban forests become more and more important, because they provide shade, they help to cool our buildings, they help to, for example, shade our buildings at times when the power goes out and we can’t run our air conditioning. They help our air conditioning run more efficiently.”
Signboards around the room asked what people wanted to see in their neighborhoods in 20 years, or which aspects of urban forest planning were a priority. People gave their feedback by placing circle stickers next to their priority issues or by writing feedback on sticky notes which they placed on the board. Attendees were also asked to mark a map with a pin on locations the UUFP should focus on.
One board asked participants what their priorities are when it comes to trees. Popular options included “plant more trees,” “protect nature and heritage trees,” “promote native drought-tolerant trees” and “focus investment where canopy is lowest.”
Victor Gonzalez, a resident of Ashland since the ’90s, shared why he cares about trees. “Because trees, they give us oxygen, they give us shade, they control a lot of the overfill, from water. I think they’re just valuable overall in the area,” he said.
Another board asked: “What should the urban forest look like?” Popular choices include a “tree-lined walking route,” “native drought tolerant landscaping” and “large, mature tree canopy with mixed species.”
Another board asked what tree benefits matter the most to people. The top two responses are “wildlife habitat” and “health and quality of life.”
Forestr CEO Nimone Li-Hardisty said trees provide natural cooling as the effects of climate change warm up the Earth. “That world is burning. Look at all the fires that we’ve had,” she said. “We couldn’t replace trees fast enough. And because, kind of like the desert, like global warming, the temperature goes up.”
