Urban Forest Management Plan

Wilsonville, ORegon

The City of Wilsonville, Oregon, in partnership with the urban forestry consultants at PlanIT Geo, completed this Urban Forest Management Plan in 2022. This Plan is a guide to maintain, protect, and enhance Wilsonville’s already extensive tree canopy cover resource and the multitude of associated benefits.

Wilsonville’s location in the north Willamette Valley, along the banks of the Willamette River result in a beautiful landscape that blends mature native Oregon white oak specimens that have been incorporated into the fabric of the community with the planted trees that are part of the development of the city over the past 50 years. The City has a vibrant urban forest that continues to be created, modified, and removed primarily by people, and sustaining it will require ongoing human intervention. The goal of this intervention is a sustainable urban forest— an urban forest that optimizes the benefits of trees while meeting established safety and economic goals. Achieving this requires robust management, diverse funding, adequate staffing, effective policies, and maintenance actions consistent with best practices.

This Urban Forest Management Plan is the City’s first of its kind. This Plan will set the stage for future actions and efforts that will ensure the long term health, management and success of the trees that comprise the urban forest. In the Plan, two specific focus areas were analyzed, the Town Center area and the Charbonneau District. In Town Center, a recently adopted master plan (2020) envisions redevelopment of significant portions of the area. Redevelopment will be dependent on understanding the health and condition of the existing trees so the City can determine what to incorporate into the next generation of projects in the Town Center. In Charbonneau, the focus of the study area is the over 800 mature northern red oaks that line French Prairie Drive. These trees are a defining element of the Chabonneau community and have become very large, presenting challenges with existing infrastructure and improvements. Balancing the needs of this red oak population with the needs of the residents of the Charbonneau community is a focus of the Plan.

Achieving the goals set forth in this Plan requires a shared commitment and partnership between the City and its community to sustain a thriving urban forest providing benefits to Wilsonville’s environment, economy, and well-being for future generations.

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Urban Forest Management Plan Wilsonville, Oregon

89,528

natural area trees

$220,000

annual ecosystem benefits and services

1.15

public trees per capita