{"id":140131,"date":"2026-01-27T19:34:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-27T19:34:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/140131\/"},"modified":"2026-01-27T19:34:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-27T19:34:07","slug":"georgetown-plans-city-wide-urban-forest-strategy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/140131\/","title":{"rendered":"Georgetown plans city-wide urban forest strategy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\tGeorgetown officials are developing an urban forest master plan to preserve and plant trees in the city as well as create guidelines for tree planting to ensure they grow.<\/p>\n<p>The details<\/p>\n<p>An urban forest master plan would help form strategies and programs to preserve <a href=\"https:\/\/georgetowntexas.qscend.com\/askgtx\/knowledgebase\/article\/588\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">heritage trees<\/a>, determine where and how to plant trees, maintain existing trees and integrate urban forest considerations into current city planning.<\/p>\n<p>The plan will explore how to best use funding available in the tree mitigation fund, <a href=\"https:\/\/georgetowntexas.gov\/parks\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Parks and Recreation<\/a> Director Kimberly Garrett said at a Jan. 13 City Council workshop.<\/p>\n<p>How it works<\/p>\n<p>The master plan will include an assessment of the existing tree canopy to find areas suitable for new trees and create an inventory of trees on public property.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt really starts with data collection; you\u2019ve got to figure out what you have before you move forward to understand the conditions, including the public and private trees,\u201d Garrett said.<\/p>\n<p>The data collection will help inform the vision for the city\u2019s urban forest and future goals for the canopy, including understanding risk factors such as wildfire and tree disease.<\/p>\n<p>City officials also plan to have a public engagement process to receive feedback from residents and explore partnerships and volunteer opportunities.<\/p>\n<p>Why it matters<\/p>\n<p>Trees have many ecosystem benefits, such as improving air quality, mitigating heat and absorbing stormwater, Garrett said. These benefits decline with the loss of urban forestry.<\/p>\n<p>Development, decay and <a href=\"https:\/\/communityimpact.com\/austin\/georgetown\/weather\/2025\/07\/07\/never-seen-that-before-georgetown-residents-share-flood-stories\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">natural disasters<\/a> can all contribute to urban forest loss, she said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019ve lost a lot of trees in the river with the flooding,\u201d Garrett said.<\/p>\n<p>What\u2019s next<\/p>\n<p>The city hopes to secure a contractor to develop the plan by May and complete the urban forest master plan by the end of the year.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Georgetown officials are developing an urban forest master plan to preserve and plant trees in the city as&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":140132,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133,4519,12268,9010,59102],"class_list":["post-140131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news","tag-city-council","tag-georgetown","tag-trees","tag-urban-forest-master-plan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=140131"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140131\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/140132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=140131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=140131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=140131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}