The city of Saratoga has teamed with the San Jose nonprofit Our City Forest to help subsidize the cost of residential tree planting.
Private property owners in Saratoga will soon be able to receive a free 5-gallon tree or a 50 percent discount on up to two trees, the result of a new two-year contract the city council authorized with Our City Forest at its Aug. 21 meeting.
The contract includes a payment of $50,000 to the nonprofit, which provides urban forestry programs and services in Silicon Valley. Our City Forest will provide the trees and planting service.
“If successful, this program [will] continue until 2030,” the staff report on the item reads.
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Saratoga’s partnership with Our City Forest comes after the city set a goal in 2016 to plant 2,020 trees by 2020 after losing some of its arboreal canopy due to the extensive drought. That effort, which the city accomplished by 2019, included a program that provided Saratogans with up to $105 in matching funds to plant up to two trees in their yards.
The latest effort is in keeping with Saratoga’s 2030 Climate Action Plan, or CAP, a roadmap outlining the city’s efforts to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions.
“Saratoga’s CAP will help focus on activities that reduce the greatest amount of emissions in the most cost-effective way,” the city’s website reads.
Saratoga has also been identified as a “Tree City USA” by the Arbor Day Foundation for 17 years in a row, a designation for cities that have a tree board or department and a community tree ordinance, spend at least $2 per capita on urban forestry and celebrate Arbor Day.
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