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College Station is going green after the city council spoke in favor of a plan to keep the city “cool” over the course of five years to reduce the urban heat island effect by planting trees in city and residential areas.

During Thursday night’s meeting, council members were presented a follow up on the “Cooling College Station Plan” by the city’s director of planning and development, Michael Ostrowski.

In 2021, the council heard an initial presentation from Ostrowski about heat islands and the effects they have on cities and ways to prevent them. Heat islands are urbanized areas that experience higher temperatures than outlying areas; structures such as buildings and roads absorb and re-emit the sun’s heat more than natural landscapes such as forests and bodies of water, according to the Environmental Protection Agency’s website. Urban areas, where these structures are highly concentrated and greenery is limited, become “islands” of higher temperatures relative to outlying areas, the EPA stated.

The council later directed Ostrowski to create a five-year city and residential plan to help prevent the heat island effect by planting trees in areas with higher temperatures. Ostrowski and his team assessed city-owned entities to determine which locations had higher temperatures and presented his findings to the council earlier this month.

The plan is to plant 1,289 trees over the course of five years across eight city-owned hot spots where planting can produce the most beneficial outcomes for heat mitigation. The priority planting areas include — from hottest to least hot — Edelweiss Park, Sandstone Park, Edelweiss Gartens Park, Anderson Park, Pebble Creek Park, Tarrow Park and Wayne Smith Athletic Complex, Wolf Pen Creek Park and Veterans Park and Athletic Complex, Ostrowski said.

The plan also includes planting 2,806 trees on right of way/other city property areas, and another 692 total trees across additional city parks including: Art & Myra Bright, Bee Creek, Brison, Castle Rock, Crescent Pointe, Eastgate, Gabbard, Jack & Dorothy Miller, John Crompton, Oaks, Reatta Meadows, Richard Center, Stephen C. Beachy Central and the Aggie Field of Honor & Memorial Cemetery and College Station Cemetery, Ostrowski said.

Trees to be planted may include live oak, Mexican white oak, desert willow, chinquapin, bald cypress, pecan, sycamore and loblolly pine, and would be 2-3.5 inch caliper trees. The total number of trees over the course of five years for the planting plan will be 4,787, which would cost about $3.7 million, adjusted for inflation, over the course of five years, he said.

City staff members also were directed to create a residential tree-planting program. Ostrowski and his team proposed a plan where over the course of five years, 2,500 trees would be planted in the backyards of residents’ homes. These trees would be five-gallon trees that are 5-7 feet in height or could be seedlings. The total cost of the residential program would be about $216,000 over the course of five years.

Ostrowski explored partnerships with other groups for residential tree-planting programs, and said the city has received $15,000 a year for two years and 250 tree seedlings for the plan, through a partnership with the Texas A&M Forest Service.

“We are extremely grateful for their offer,” he told the council. “The city was also selected as one of about 50 cities out of the country to be part of the [Housing and Urban Development] HUD Climate Communities Technical Assistance Program. That provides the city technical assistance through HUD, and other cities that have been selected, to work on resiliency type programs and we had submitted this planting plan as part of that discussion, so we have been awarded that as well.”

Councilman Bob Brick said he wanted to ensure trees be planted in a timely manner, and asked about ways the city could save money down the road due to expenditures on the trees. Ostrowski said it would be difficult to determine in the long haul, but that depending on the residential areas chosen to plant trees that could potentially help residents save money on their electric bills due to the trees providing shade and cooling to the homes.

Councilman John Crompton said his hope is that before they reach a five-year mark, the city will double the scale of the tree planting plan.

“People don’t want to live in a place which has got heat all the time, like we have here. And yes we invest in this thing and the alternative is you turn your air conditioner up and you make the climate [change] worse,” he said. “It seems everywhere I look at this, this is a good investment.”

Councilwoman Elizabeth Cunha said she would like to see more pecan trees planted, and asked about the advantages of planting a first-year seeding as part of the residential tree-planting program, rather than a fully grown tree.

Mac Martin, partnership coordinator for Texas A&M Forest Service, answered Cunha by saying younger trees are more adaptable to new spaces, while older trees have developed more roots and may not be as adaptable to being placed in a harsher environment.

Mayor Karl Mooney was also in favor of the plan.

With the council unanimously in favor of the tree-planting plan, they directed city staff to figure out how to fund the project.

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