Neighborhood Tree Maintenance

Trees are an important part of what makes the Sunset District such a special place to live. They bring greenery to our residential streets, provide habitat for birds and wildlife and make our neighborhoods more beautiful.

But anyone who has lived next to a mature street tree also knows that trees need care.

Overgrown branches can reach into overhead wires, obstruct signs or grow toward homes. Roots can lift and crack sidewalks, creating tripping hazards and accessibility problems. They can also come into conflict with sewer lines and other infrastructure beneath our streets.

These are issues I regularly hear about from Sunset residents, and they raise a simple question: Are we doing enough to maintain the trees we already have?

Nearly a decade ago, San Francisco voters made a significant change in how we care for our street trees. Proposition E, approved in 2016, transferred responsibility for maintaining the City’s street trees from adjacent property owners to San Francisco Public Works and provided dedicated funding for that work.

The resulting program, StreetTreeSF, was designed to move San Francisco toward proactive maintenance. Public Works is responsible for more than 125,000 street trees across the City, with trees generally intended to be inspected and pruned on a regular three-to-five-year cycle. The City is also responsible for repairing sidewalks damaged by street-tree roots.

That was an important change. Maintaining a large, mature tree can be challenging, and the health of our urban forest should not depend on whether an individual homeowner can afford an arborist.

But transferring responsibility to the City also means the City has to deliver.

For residents, the current system can sometimes be frustrating. If a street tree needs routine pruning, residents generally cannot simply prune it themselves. Instead, they may be told that the tree will be addressed during the City’s regular maintenance cycle. When roots begin lifting a sidewalk or interfering with nearby infrastructure, it can also be difficult to understand who is responsible, what the City can do, and how long it will take.

That is why I recently called for a hearing at the Board of Supervisors on street tree pruning and tree-root management.

I want Public Works and our urban forestry experts to explain how frequently our street trees are actually being pruned, how the City decides which trees and sidewalks receive priority and how well the system is working when tree roots begin damaging sidewalks or other public infrastructure.

Just as importantly, I want to understand whether we are identifying these problems early enough.

Good tree maintenance should be preventative. A branch growing toward a utility line is easier to address before it becomes a hazard. A root beginning to deform a sidewalk is easier to manage before the sidewalk becomes impassable. And caring for a tree regularly is better for the tree itself than waiting until a problem becomes severe.

This isn’t a choice between protecting trees and protecting our infrastructure. Good maintenance does both.

As we work to grow San Francisco’s urban forest, we also have a responsibility to take care of the trees that generations of San Franciscans have already planted. That means giving them the pruning and care they need while making sure our sidewalks remain safe, our utilities are protected, and residents can get help when problems arise.

Our office is currently collecting examples from Sunset residents as we prepare for this hearing. If you have experienced problems with an overgrown street tree, tree-root damage to a sidewalk or infrastructure, or difficulty getting a tree-maintenance issue resolved, I encourage you to contact our office.

The Sunset should continue to be a neighborhood where mature trees can thrive. Making that possible requires more than planting trees. It requires taking care of them.

Supervisor Alan Wong represents District 4 on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. He was born and raised in the Sunset District. Reach his office at wongstaff@sfgov.org or 415-554-7460.