Beverly Hills becomes Tree City USA

BEVERLY HILLS — The Arbor Day Foundation recently recognized the village of Beverly Hills as a Tree City USA.

In order to become a Tree City, a city must meet The Arbor Day Foundation’s four standards: maintaining a tree board or department, having a community tree ordinance, spending at least $2 per capita on urban forestry and celebrating Arbor Day.

“We really believe that the standards of the program create this common framework for cities of all sizes around the country that show that they are committed to protecting and growing their community forest,” Senior Manager of Programs Logan Donahoo said. “The standards provide this framework that communities can commit to year after year as they aim to protect their trees and ultimately have a thriving community forest that everyone in the community has access to.”

Donahoo said that the standards to become a Tree City are inclusive enough for there to be a large range of cities recognized, from New York City to the smallest, Sibley, North Dakota, with 29 residents.

The Arbor Day Foundation reported that in 2023, the village of Beverly Hills planted 30 trees and maintained 100. Their total expenditure on tree planting and care was $173,180.00.

“We take care of our tree canopy,” Beverly Hills Public Services Director Neil Johnston said. “We do pruning as needed throughout the village. We do removals when there are trees that are hazardous and they need to be removed. As far as planting goes, we don’t have a planting program right now, but when we do receive funding from the grants and those types of things. We like to plant as many trees as we can to replace the ones that we do remove.

The village far exceeded the Tree City USA requirement of at least $2 per capita with a per capita expenditure of $16.34.

The 2023 program numbers are not yet final, but in 2022, The Arbor Day Foundation reported, there were 117 Tree City USA communities in Michigan and 3,559 nationwide.

A city must reapply each year to maintain its Tree City USA status. Other neighboring cities that have been recognized are Birmingham and Franklin.

“It’s not about achieving the four standards once. The idea is that it’s something that you need to commit to every year in order to continue growing a thriving urban forestry program,” Donahoo said.