The advance in maintenance and preservation practices and standards, such as pruning, tree protection, inventories, and species and age diversity management create a need for staff to become more knowledgeable. Training requires more time and resources. Public demand encourages the City to increase planting, through programs like NeighborWoods and the passage of the Local Street Plan which mandates street trees. These newly planted trees promises to increase the need for pruning and maintenance ten to fifteen years from now. Shifting resources to maintain newly planted trees leaves fewer resources for pruning and removal of possibly hazardous older trees.
Planning is needed to effectively manage the forest for the future.
This managed, systematic care improves efficiency and reduces costs. However, callers are not always pleased with the response time. Internal policies have also shifted to provide a greater emphasis on regulatory activities to protect trees on private lands. This shift has taken away resources needed for maintenance activities on public trees. This increases the feeling of ownership and stewardship that residents have for the urban forest, thereby reducing vandalism of trees.