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<br /> 6.1 C.1 <br />Significant dieback has occurred in approximately 5% of the trees following root pruni~~ge 7 <br />resulting in follow-up pruning and in some cases tree removal. The trees may decline over <br />time, or they may recover and provide a greater canopy than a newly planted tree. These trees <br />could have been removed at the time of the initial sidewalk repair, or the location could have <br />been skipped and a temporary repair made. The practice - based on the original policy <br />objective - of root pruning and retaining trees, even if in some doubt as to the long-term <br />viability, has resulted in many more recovered trees and a reasonable level of failures. <br />The data shows that the project is completing the sidewalk removal and replacement process <br />in a manner that meets the goal of low risk. Approximately 1.4% of the root pruned trees have <br />failed. The majority of these failures have occurred during significant weather events which <br />have also caused damage to trees not receiving the root pruning treatment. <br />The alternative to root pruning is to remove more trees to complete sidewalk re-construction. <br />This intensity of tree removal was not in the Council's program vision or direction to staff. Root <br />pruning provides an alternative to the tree removal approach. A new altemative - rubber <br />sidewalk panels - is allowing sidewalk construction with very minimal root pruning. Staff now <br />has an option to construct more sidewalks to engineering standards while avoiding root <br />pruning adjacent to sidewalks. Some root pruning may still be required in order to construct <br />driveway approaches and curb and gutter. This root pruning will be more selective in most <br />cases. <br />There will continue to be situations where trees have outgrown their available growing space, <br />there is no room to design street and driveway access around the tree, and tree removal will <br />be the only option. However, most sidewalk situations, with easements, rubber sidewalks, and <br />relocating the sidewalk further from the tree should allow the construction of sidewalks to City <br />standards. <br />Information on the Public Works Services tree stability testing procedure is attached to this <br />report. <br />Attachment: <br />Tree Stability Testing <br />TreFFailure Data Analuysis <br /> Page 6 of 6 <br />....",.--.-. - ._~"... ..._" .~_,..~_u" --._'.'---'._-~' ----_.~_. ~..- <br />