Atlantic Beach residents will soon have a new way to track the city's tree canopy, explore interactive foliage maps and nominate heritage trees for city designation.
AB Trees is an urban forestry dashboard accessible through the city's website. City IT Director Ron Bautista developed the program, coding the dashboard in-house without relying on outside software.
The portal was developed as part of the city's centennial celebration and is designed to give residents a more active role in the city's tree-planting and preservation efforts.
“Residents already can actively participate through the portal, applying for free trees, nominating heritage trees and exploring interactive maps of foliage,” Bautista said. “The city will continue to expand the site to include historical records, detailed public tree data, photos and, ultimately, real-time data on local canopy health.”
Director of Neighborhoods Amanda Askew said the portal is available via https://tree.coab.us/ or through the city's website, coab.us, under the environment tab. The tree dashboard directs residents to the forestry site, where they can apply for a free tree.
“Our centennial tree campaign tells you how many trees we've planted so far,” Askew said. “Our goal was 100 trees for our 100 years, and there's a map that you can zoom into as well. We are going to be putting additional data on the board.”
Askew said the city plans to add a link allowing residents to view all active tree permits. The portal also will include the current balance of the city's tree fund, along with a list detailing how the money has been spent.
Tree placement will depend in part on the species selected, Askew said.
“Some species do better with a small tree, so it will probably be a species-by-species discussion for placement,” she said.
City Manager Kevin Hogencamp said the city's upcoming budget workshop Aug. 19 will include information about plans to “dig into the tree preservation fund and get trees into the ground.”
The city adopted updates to its tree protection code last month. Hogencamp said staff members are now moving into the second phase of the initiative, integrating the new regulations with plans to add more trees throughout the city.
“We have a healthy tree protection fund with more than $600,000,” he said. “And with our new tree portal, we are excited about doing all things trees and being transparent about it.”
