What It Could Be: 2100 MLK Ave. SE

The streetscapes of D.C. could bring beauty and benefits to our neighborhoods if only their potential was realized. The Planning & Design department looks at some of the rough patches and then demonstrates “What It Could Be” if it incorporated bioretention that promoted the growth of large shade trees. The most recent stretch of street to get a digital makeover is 2100 Martin Luther King Jr. Ave. SE. 

The drawings shows two different streetscapes, the current one on above and the imagined one below. Notice the before design constrains roots whereas the after design gives larger trees more space for their roots, in turn preserving the sidewalk, encouraging growth and making streets biodiverse.

The extra soil space allows for stormwater capture, which removes pollution and helps prevent dirty water from entering our waterways. In many street boxes in the District, like those in the photograph on the left, additional vegetation impedes on a tree’s root growth and sends polluted water to the river through the sewer system.

“What It Could Be” is a new recurring feature in our e-newsletter, The Leaflet. Subscribe to The Leaflet to catch stories like this one and more.

Tree and Slope Protection Overlays

Contributor: Scott Brown, Planning Associate

The recent release of Casey Trees’ Third Annual Tree Report Card has generated much discussion about tree protection, one of the five metrics used to determine the District's overall grade of C. The tree protection metric, the measure of the effectiveness of the Urban Forest Preservation Act (UFPA) of 2002, received a failing grade.

While the tree protection metric evaluates the success of the UFPA, there are lesser-known regulatory tools called Tree and Slope Protection Overlays in place to help safeguard D.C.’s trees. While Tree and Slope Protection overlays exist in a very small portion of the District, they merit discussion.

What is an overlay?
An overlay is a special zoning district for a specific geographic area that provides supplemental regulations to the underlying zoning district (R-1, R-2, C-1, etc.). In general, overlays build in additional protections often for the purposes of urban design, historic preservation or environmental buffering. Three Tree and Slope Protection Overlays in D.C. - The Tree & Slope Protection (TSP) overlay, the Forest Hills Tree & Slope Protection overlay (FH-TSP) and the Chain Bridge-University Terrace (CB/UT) - do just that. All have similar protections and are located in Ward 3. You can see each overlay in the map below.

Each of the three Tree and Slope Overlays provide the following:

• Total protection for all trees with a circumference of 75 inches or more. These trees cannot be removed, even with a permit unless they are dead or diseased.
• Prevents removal of more than 3 trees measuring 38 inches in circumference. These removals cannot take place within 25 feet of a property line abutting the public right of way.
• Prohibits removal of more than 25% of the total trees 12 inches and wider.
• Forbids building permit will be issued for the site for seven years for violators.
• Limits building footprints to 30% of the total lot area and no more than 50% of the lot can be covered by impervious surface.

Learn more about the Tree and Slope Overlays on the DC Office of Zoning website.

SUMMER CREW UPDATE #4

Contributing Writer - William E. Omorogieva, Summer Crew Team Member

This week with the Summer Crew was a very interesting experience. The weather was nice and cool for the majority of the week helping the Summer Crew water a record number of trees - 200 - in a single day.

In addition to hard work, this amazing accomplishment was aided by new automatic pumps that were delivered during the middle of the week. All of us helped lift the large and heavy watering mechanisms onto the trucks. Although the pumps are slow, it helps to have people and a hose watering different trees at the same time.

The best part of the week was our planning and design day at Casey Trees' headquarters. It was even more heavenly due to the air conditioning inside the office compared to the scorching 90 degree weather outside. We spent all of our time with Maisie Hughes, Director of Planning and Design at Casey Trees. This day was very fun and interesting. I learned a lot.

We played games such as Tree Jeopardy and learned the role an arborist plays in nurturing trees in the city. We learned new techniques to plant and care for trees in the city. After our indoor activities, we took a short walk to a park where we observed all of the ways trees affect a community. We then traveled back to the office and did an activity involving maps.

In this activity we were all given a map, a pencil and instructions to develop a tree friendly low-impact concept design for a site in the Navy Yard neighborhood. The exercise tested what we learned throughout the day. My best idea was putting trees on the roof of a parking garage.

Overall I enjoyed this week due to the great weather and the change from the normal routine. Hopefully we can break another single day record for tree watering and learn just as much as we did this week.