Forestry Division Data

Hazard Tree Removal

The Forestry Division is responsible for planting, trimming, and removing street and park trees. 

Routine tree inspections flag hazard trees for removal, normally within 30 days. The goal is to complete all validated, hazard tree requests within 30 days. However, performance can be impacted by vacant Tree Trimmer Trainee and Tree Trimmer positions, a higher-than-normal number of requests (ex. tornado), and the outstanding backlog (see analysis of the backlog below). 

The Forestry Division did not meet their goal of completing all requests within 30 days during Q2 2026. This is because the Forestry Division is focused on clearing out the backlog of requests older than 30 days (see below).

Hazard Tree Removal Backlog

One of the reasons that hazard trees are not removed on time is because there is a sizable backlog of requests that the Division needs to address prior to working the newest requests (received in the past 30 days). 

Forestry’s hazard tree backlog grew in 2024 due to inadequate staffing, and grew further in Q2-Q3 2025 due to the tornado. 

However, progress against the backlog has begun to accelerate in recent months. Since Q4 2025, the Forestry Division has seen consistent monthly decreases in the size of the backlog. 

Beginning in July 2026, Forestry is taking the following steps to secure further improvement:

• Conducting a hazard tree removal ‘blitz’ where select crews are completely focused on making progress against the hazard tree removal backlog 
• Hiring contractors to support hazard tree removal

Vacant Lot Mowing

The Forestry Division is responsible for mowing vacant properties across the city that are not maintained by their owners. For each such property that the Forestry Division mows or trims, owners are billed for City maintenance.

There are approximately 14,000 vacant lots in the city that the Forestry Division has “on rotation”. Between April and October each year, Forestry crews work through the rotation as many times as possible. 

The first rotation was worked between April 6 and May 26, 2026. The graph below shows the Forestry Division’s progress by Wards. The left bar in the column shows the total number of lots mowed, and the right bar in the column shows the total number of lots in that ward. Above the graph, the percentage of total mowed lots in each Ward is provided. For example, in Ward 13, there were 2,705 vacant lots, and 1,603 were mowed, which is 59.3% of the lots.

The data shows that Forestry mowed and billed for approximately 7,000 lots in the first rotation. More root cause analysis needs to be done to determine why some lots were not mowed in the first rotation, whether this was done because the grass was not high early in the mowing season, because the lot was already mowed by someone else, or because it was missed.

Forestry is currently implementing new processes to better track the mowing rotation and to confirm the status of each lot after Forestry visits it on rotation. 

Vacant Building Lot Maintenance

Vacant building lots are trimmed/maintained by contracted crews working on rotation. Vacant building lots are more time-consuming to maintain than vacant lots because equipment such as tractors may not be usable due to the presence of the building and other trees or brush on the lot. Because of this, Forestry typically completes fewer vacant building rotations in a season than vacant lot rotations. The goal is to complete four rotations in a cut season (when grass is likely growing). 

As of June 30, 2026, the vacant building crews had not yet completed the first full rotation. Of the wards that they had completed, 1,048 building parcels were trimmed (out of a total of 4,638 total vacant building properties known to be in the wards shown below). Similar to vacant lots, parcels are skipped when they have already been mowed/maintained by someone else (ex., the owner, a neighbor, a private company). The City is planning a deep dive into this data to understand and address service gaps.