J Magazine Spring 2018

Opened in July 1996, the Jessie B. Smith Plaza is an often overlooked pocket park on Forsyth Street across from Florida Theatre.
“Hurricane Irma showed us how vulnerable
Downtown is to flooding,” Ehas
said. “We need to think about how we
can mitigate that, especially along the river.
Green infrastructure uses vegetation,
soils, and other elements and practices
to restore some of the natural processes
required to manage water and create
healthier urban environments.”
Things like grassy areas, bio swales
and permeable pavement can capture
and filter storm water, which is especially
important in Downtown Jacksonville
because anything that goes into a street
drain goes straight in the St. Johns River. A
2002 study found that for every dollar the
city spends maintaining its trees, it saves
$4.60 in storm water management.
The time is right
And the timing couldn’t be better because
the city now has some new tools:
a citywide survey of the tree canopy and
$20 million awaiting disbursement in the
city tree mitigation fund.
The tree canopy survey was a project
of Greenscape and Public Trust Environmental
Legal Institute of Florida and
funded with $103,000 from the city Environmental
Protection Board. (To see the
database and planning tools, go to jaxdigstrees.org.)
Plan-It Geo surveyed Duval County’s
tree canopy last summer with geospatial
technology that analyzed data from an
aerial perspective. John November, executive
director of Public Trust, said the
canopy survey gives the city a baseline so
that it can make strategic decisions about
where to plant trees — like Downtown.
The survey shows that trees make up
only 11 percent of Downtown, which includes
the Southbank. But it shows that
there’s space to increase the canopy by 18
percent.
The JaxDigsTrees database also has a
planning tool that allows a user to try out
different size trees, play with placement
and spacing and analyze the potential
economic and environmental benefits.
“You can say, I want six bald cypress
here and six oaks there and draw them
on the map with GPS coordinates so
work crews could go plant them exactly
where you want them,” November said.
“Then send the data to JEA to make sure
it’s consistent with underground utilities.
You not only can plan a project, you now
have an inventory and that will help the
city schedule maintenance.”
One group that will be making a lot of
use of JaxDigsTrees.org is the new Tree
Commission that started work in January.
The seven-member commission will
make recommendations to the city about
the best places to plant trees.
The commission was part of a settlement
of a suit Public Trust filed in 2015
against the way the city’s use of the Tree
Mitigation Trust Fund established in
2000 by charter amendment. Developers
pay into the fund when they cut down
trees and the money is supposed to be
used to mitigate the loss by paying for
new trees to be planted on public property
elsewhere in the county.
The fund has grown to $20 million, and
BOB SELF
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J MAGAZINE | SPRING 2018