Street Tree Plan

Fall foliage displayed by Glenwood Avenue street trees

In May and June of 2002, the Metropolitan Planning Commission (MPC) held public workshops as part of the public input process for the development of a five-year tree planting and improvement program for the City of Knoxville. The purpose of this plan is to improve and refine the city policies currently in place for planting trees, using standard urban forestry guiding principles along with advice of city engineers and landscape architects. Mike Carberry, a principal planner for the MPC, is spearheading this effort.

On October 8, 2002, the draft Knoxville Street Tree Masterplan was revealed to the public. MPC approved the plan on December 12, and the Knoxville City Council approved it January 7, 2003. You may read the plan here.

Public space, particularly rights-of-way, is the major focus. Since it may take decades for trees to reach maturity, this plan is also inherently long range in nature. Long-term conservation and planting strategies are:

Creating medians and planting strips,

Widening sidewalks and planting trees or planting trees within existing sidewalks,

Creating planting strips and constructing sidewalks that are well separated from automobile travel lanes, and

Redesigning parking lots and planting trees with redevelopment.

Numerous detailed maps have been prepared for each of the city's six geographic areas, known as sectors. The sectors are for the Central City, North City, Northwest City, West City, East City and South City. Additionally, specific corridors have received particular attention. An example map is shown here, for the Central City sector.

More information about the Street Tree Plan will appear soon on MPC's website.