Does Money Grow on Trees?
David Neiman
Last week Erica Barnett wrote a thought provoking article in Publicola looking at Seattle’s proposed new tree legislation. Among its criticisms, the article noted that the additional staff needed to enforce the new rules would cost the city more money than the legislation is expected to raise to fund tree planting in underserved neighborhoods. This got me thinking about not just the cost to the city budget, but the amount of money being spent by each applicant to deal with the new bureaucracy generated by this proposal.
The annual estimated cost came to $20 million spent by applicants on surveys, reports, design fees, and city reviews vs. 67 trees planted. This works out to a total of $300,000 per tree. Seriously. You can read more at our blog here: http://neimanarchitects.blogspot.com/2023/04/does-money-grows-on-trees.html