{"id":204691,"date":"2026-04-21T13:43:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T13:43:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/204691\/"},"modified":"2026-04-21T13:43:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T13:43:08","slug":"nyc-aims-to-expand-tree-canopy-to-shade-30-of-city-by-2040","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/204691\/","title":{"rendered":"NYC aims to expand tree canopy to shade 30% of city by 2040"},"content":{"rendered":"

This story was originally published by THE CITY<\/a>. Sign up<\/a> to get the latest New York City news<\/a> delivered to you each morning. Public health, explained: Sign up to receive Healthbeat\u2019s free New York City newsletter here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

On a breezy Monday morning on a quiet corner of Queens, 11 leafy new neighbors arrived on a truck, fresh from a nursery in Kansas City.<\/p>\n

Elm, red maple, and cherry trees \u2014 some with pink blossoms \u2014 would be planted next to the sidewalks across a few blocks of Cambria Heights, a suburban-style neighborhood of homes with grassy front lawns. <\/p>\n

As workers hoisted a tree out of a bag surrounding its roots, a woman with a phone to her ear leaving a nearby house called out to ask what kind of tree the workers were planting: an elm that would grow to be up to 70 feet tall over the next three to four decades.<\/p>\n

\u201cAdding to the family!\u201d she exclaimed, grinning, before getting into a car.<\/p>\n

Cambria Heights is among the neighborhoods with the highest risks of extreme heat<\/a>, where temperatures are hotter than the city\u2019s average and where some blocks lack any trees. <\/p>\n

Monday\u2019s tree-planting session came as part of a strategy in its second year that prioritizes putting new trees in the neighborhoods most vulnerable to extreme heat, rather than in response to ad hoc 311 requests, as had been done in years past. <\/p>\n

And planting those trees took on a particular significance as the Mamdani administration on Tuesday released a plan<\/a> to expand the tree canopy to cover 30% of the city by 2040.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo reach this 30% goal, it\u2019s going to take work from every actor in the entire city,\u201d said Jessica Einhorn, chief of forestry programs at the Department of Parks and Recreation. \u201cThis program planting trees, especially in the high [heat vulnerable] neighborhoods, is really critical towards that equity angle.\u201d<\/p>\n

In those riskier areas, the tree canopy \u2014 or the area of the city currently covered by trees and their leaves \u2014 stands at 19%, compared to about 26% in others, city Chief Climate Officer Louise Yeung told the City Council in March. (Overall, tree canopy covers just over 23% of the boroughs, according to the last count in 2021. That was after a net increase of 1.2% since 2017.)<\/p>\n

Trees across the city serve more than an aesthetic purpose \u2014 they add to the health and resiliency of a neighborhood. Areas with a robust tree canopy and vegetation have shown to be slightly<\/a> to significantly<\/a> cooler compared to places where green space is scarce and pavement is plentiful. Trees also help to purify air and can reduce water runoff to mitigate flooding. <\/p>\n

And their value as heat-regulators will only increase in the near future.<\/p>\n

By the 2040s \u2014 the due date for the 30% canopy goal \u2014 New York City\u2019s temperatures could be between nearly 3 and 6 degrees hotter due to the effects of climate change, according to the New York City Panel on Climate Change<\/a>. Heat is dangerous: It contributes to the deaths of over 500 New Yorkers<\/a> on average each year, with Black New Yorkers twice as likely to die compared to white residents.<\/p>\n

The city experiences the urban heat island effect, meaning it\u2019s hotter<\/a> because of the density, pavement, and tall buildings than elsewhere. But some areas are significantly greener and cooler than others, while other neighborhoods are more vulnerable to heat based on a combination of physical factors \u2014 like existing trees \u2014 and social considerations, like residents\u2019 income and access to air conditioning.<\/p>\n

\"CherryCherry blossoms bloom in eastern Queens on Monday. (Ben Fractenberg \/ THE CITY) <\/p>\n

The Parks Department\u2019s tree-planting strategy, announced<\/a> in 2024, does away with the system where anyone can call 311 to ask for a new tree \u2014 except for the loophole New Yorkers can make a $1,800 donation<\/a> to do so, as previously reported by THE CITY.<\/p>\n

The new system instead divides the city into more than 400 zones, planting trees in every viable place within a zone while removing stumps and dying trees. <\/p>\n

Each community board district will have a zone serviced every three years, and Parks plans to hit all zones every nine years<\/a>. (Here\u2019s a tentative schedule<\/a> of tree-planting locations.) The most heat-vulnerable neighborhoods are on track to be completed by the end of 2027, Yeung said.<\/p>\n

Money grows trees<\/p>\n

Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2019s plan is the first time the city has set a target date for the goal of a 30% canopy. But critically, the money to pay for it has not been committed.<\/p>\n

\u201cMany of the actions in the plan rely on existing program budgets and aim to ensure that we are spending smarter,\u201d City Hall spokesperson Jessica Woolford said in a statement. \u201cWe are creatively leveraging funds from government and private sources to advance our shared goals.\u201d<\/p>\n

City Hall did not offer its own estimate for the cost. But according to a 2022 estimate<\/a> from a local environmental advocacy group, it would cost about $500 million to plant a million trees and achieve its canopy goal.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe plan is great, but what comes after is the most critical part,\u201d said Shravanthi Kanekal, a resiliency planner at the New York City Environmental Justice Alliance. \u201cIt\u2019s going to signal a whole lot to see how much they dedicate funding to the plan.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though as a candidate, Mamdani promised to dedicate 1% of the budget to the Department of Parks and Recreation, his preliminary budget this year proposed spending just half of that<\/a> \u2014 cutting nearly $34 million from the department\u2019s budget in the current fiscal year.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m really glad to see the city set a goal of 2040, and I think what we\u2019ve been looking to is how to further accelerate achieving that goal,\u201d said Tami Lin-Moges, director of the cities program at the Nature Conservancy. \u201cBut obviously that really relies on increased investments. \u2026 Investing in parks and the urban forest is an investment in livability in New York City.\u201d<\/p>\n

Greening the city so almost a third of it has tree canopy will require money, manpower, and shoring up interest from New Yorkers, said Simon Skinner, chief of programs and operations at the New York Restoration Project.<\/p>\n

He pointed to the successful initiative to plant a million trees<\/a> that the Bloomberg administration launched in 2007. It took eight years, short of the decade expected. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt shows it\u2019s possible,\u201d Skinner said. \u201cEveryone was pulling in the same direction because it was such a big initiative coming from City Hall.\u201d<\/p>\n

Skinner said several agencies coordinated to prioritize the goal as private landowners got involved, and the government and its partners educated kids and adults on tree planting and stewardship. <\/p>\n

Not everyone is happy with new plantings<\/p>\n

In Cambria Heights on Monday, interactions with neighbors showed some of the challenges the city may face as it reaches for the goal; not everyone was happy about the newly rooted neighbors.<\/p>\n

Derrick Simmons, a long-time resident of a nearby block, stopped by to talk to the Parks workers about the problems he\u2019s had with trees.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe trees have fallen on different people\u2019s cars. They broke up the sidewalks,\u201d he said. \u201cI know they said that this is supposed to make the neighborhood more beautiful, and I get that. But of course we got 26 trees. We don\u2019t need any more trees.\u201d<\/p>\n

A bit later, another neighbor walked by and said the tree roots were messing with his home\u2019s sewer pipes: \u201cI live on the next block. We got tree-lined streets. It sucks!\u201d<\/p>\n

Nav\u00e9 Strauss, Parks\u2019 director of tree planting, said, \u201cOur mandate is to plant every available location.\u201d<\/p>\n

Einhorn said Simmons and his neighbor\u2019s complaints indicated there was a lot that could be done to \u201cincrease the connection between people and their trees.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cWe do as much as we can to care for the trees, but really it\u2019s those blocks where like a property owner or a neighbor will come out and water the tree or maybe plant flowers around that the data shows that those trees are better off than the others,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

To reach the 30% canopy goal, trees will need to be planted on privately owned property, not just in public parks and on streets, Einhorn said \u2014 \u201cand more than anything else is preserving our existing tree canopy.\u201d<\/p>\n

That maintenance \u2014 pruning, watering, cleaning tree beds and removing invasive vines \u2014 is important for trees to thrive and for the canopy to expand. All of those tasks require people to do them, which costs money.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, it\u2019s sexy and nice to plant a bunch of new trees, but we have to also look after what we already have,\u201d Skinner said. \u201cThey have an outsized effect on things like reducing heat and absorbing pollution.\u201d<\/p>\n

Samantha Maldonado is a senior reporter for THE CITY, where she covers climate, resiliency, housing and development.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This story was originally published by THE CITY. Sign up to get the latest New York City news…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":204692,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[72776,44321,9,24,55,54,56,122,53289,11447],"class_list":{"0":"post-204691","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-cherry-blossoms","9":"tag-healthbeat","10":"tag-new-york","11":"tag-new-york-city","12":"tag-new-york-city-headlines","13":"tag-new-york-city-news","14":"tag-ny","15":"tag-queens","16":"tag-the-city","17":"tag-trees"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=204691"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204691\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/204692"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=204691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=204691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=204691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}