The Grow Hamtramck program in the city of Hamtramck is hoping to plant a thousand trees in four years.

Community and Economic Development Director for the City of Hamtramck Isabel Allaway says it’s a part of a grant-funded urban forestry project to increase the city’s tree canopy and increase shade in the densest city in Michigan. 

“We did some inventory in 2019 to determine what available public planting spaces there were in our city, and we pursued this grant funding and were awarded it after we found over 1,200 available planting spaces at that time,” she says.

Allaway says the funding will focus on generating requests from residents to determine where to plant 1,000 trees in the city. 

Contractors, which include an arborist team and people who plant and maintain the trees in their first year of life, take care of the rest. 

“We’re about a year and a half into what is a four year program, and we’ve planted about 400 trees so far of that 1,000 trees,” she shares.

Careful planning

Allaway says the city works with an arborist team and the Davey Resource Group, the urban forestry program coordinator for this project, to determine which trees should or should not be planted in the city.

“We want to make sure that we’re maintaining species diversity and that we’re not planting too many trees of the same variety in close proximity to each other to maintain the health of the urban tree canopy,” she says.

Allaway says they the city is planting trees on the public right of way that are 3 feet to 5 feet wide, between sidewalks and streets. That’s to minimize cracks, sidewalk disruption or from trees not going too far over people’s homes.

“So we’re planning about 70% small trees in those spaces, and the residential right of ways on those residential streets are really our highest priority for generating requests,” she expresses.

Growing benefits

She says along with increasing the tree canopy, planting more trees reduces the heat index, provides shade and increases the feeling of safety for pedestrians and cars. 

“A tree-lined street reduces the speed at which someone will drive a vehicle down that street, because it narrows the sight line,” she explains.

Allaway says it also increases property values for homeowners.

“We’re really conscious that our residents live in a city that’s surrounded by sort of a collar of industrial properties, and so trying to make sure that we’re mitigating those impacts for our residents is really important to us,” she says.

Allaway says the trees should also help with absorbing stormwater and groundwater, due to the flooding in Hamtramck.

People can sign up for a tree or call the Community and Economic Development Department at 313-800-5233 extension 818 for an over-the-phone intake. They can also email treerequests@hamtramckcity.gov or fill out a survey.

The survey is available in Arabic and Bangla.

This story is a part of WDET’s ongoing series, the Detroit Tree Canopy Project.