City council adopts street tree concept

The city council adopted the street tree concept today. This provides the city of Chemnitz with a basis for action for the long-term protection and development of street trees.

The planting of street trees is a joint task of landscape architects, urban planners and road engineers, for which this street tree concept forms the planning basis. Street trees are a fundamental design element and an important component of public green spaces in large cities. They have to thrive under particularly difficult site conditions, so that the needs of the living organism "tree" must be taken into account right from the start of planning in order to preserve and develop the stock in the long term and to be able to optimally secure the local authority's duty to ensure traffic safety.

Against the background of the available financial resources, priorities for the development of the street tree population are formulated and specifications for the development of tree locations are defined in order to achieve a sustainable result and save follow-up costs.

There are currently 23,211 recorded street trees in the city.

The concept sets out a series of targets for urban roads:

Federal highways and main roads are generally to be maintained and planned as two-row avenues on both sides. As a rule, other roads are to be maintained and planned as a row of trees on at least one side. Exceptions to this rule are well-greened residential and owner-occupied areas, where street trees are generally not planted.
In newly developed commercial areas, street tree planting is generally dispensed with in favour of tree planting on private properties that will have an impact on the streetscape.
In rural neighbourhoods, street greenery is often planted on private land. These avenues and individual trees that characterise the townscape must also be preserved or replanted.
Street trees are subject to the tree protection statutes. Felling must be compensated for in accordance with the tree protection statutes.
When laying new cables, valuable old trees and all possibilities for root protection, including the laying of cables in the street structure, must be examined. This assessment also applies to the renovation of footpaths. If interventions in the root zone are unavoidable, compensation payments must be made.

Background on street trees

Trees have a high intrinsic biological value due to their ability to produce oxygen, humidify the air, reduce noise and bind dust and dirt. The metabolism and shading effect of large old trees equalise temperatures. There is no alternative to improving the bioclimatic conditions in urban streets and their immediate surroundings with the help of street trees. In its Integrated Climate Protection Programme, the City of Chemnitz established the planting of street trees in public street spaces as a component of the city-wide planning strategy in 2012. The planting of 500 street trees per year in the medium term will contribute to increasing the proportion of greenery in the city.

The greening of the street space is also given importance in the draft noise action plan of the city of Chemnitz (stage 2). With the aim of increasing the quality of stay and acceptance of the remaining traffic noise, possibilities for tree planting are to be examined on the noisiest streets.

To ensure that street trees continue to fulfil their functions under the conditions of climate change and characterise the image of the city, it will be increasingly important in future to identify heat- and drought-tolerant tree species and varieties and to examine their suitability for the streetscape. The use of better-adapted tree species is necessary and non-native trees will become indispensable in inner-city areas.