Gilbert is getting aggressive on the topic of shade, officials said.

Town Council adopted a new shade and streetscape master plan Jan. 25 with goals that could nearly double the amount of shade in developed areas across town to 30% coverage. The town estimates its shade canopy at 17% coverage.

“Thirty percent does sound aggressive,” Development Services Director Kyle Mieras said, adding that the town believes it is attainable. “When we look at the different open spaces we have and areas where we can plant those trees, and we can kind of blend that 30% over the entire community, I think that we can get there. But I also think it needs to be something that we stretch for.”

The push for more shade has been ongoing for several years, initiated by former Council Member Jared Taylor while serving as council liaison to the parks and recreation board and taken up by Town Manager Patrick Banger, who suggested drawing up a master plan.

“I love it,” Taylor said of the adopted plan. “We want to be family-friendly, but it doesn’t cost a lot of money. It has a lot of return. Yes, there’s some [maintenance and operations] element to it, but it’s not a really high cost to beautify the city like that.”

The plan is vague on implementation, including specific costs or timeline, instead covering more the range of options for implementation.

Taylor and town officials said they see multiple benefits to adding so much shade, from protecting residents from the Arizona heat and making playgrounds usable to health and environmental effects.

Existing shade

The town’s efforts were rooted before the idea of a master plan for shade and streetscape came along, Parks and Recreation Director Robert Carmona said.

The town has previously catalogued the trees that public works and the streets crews maintain in open spaces, town facilities and parks. Each has Geographic Information System mapping coordinates that include the type of tree and its maintenance history, Carmona said.

With that information in hand, the town determined it had 17,082 documented trees with 4,563 acres of tree canopy coverage, according to town documents. That gives the town 17% tree coverage across developed Gilbert to go along with 16.8% building coverage across all of Gilbert.

The town and its consultants, primarily Justin Azevedo from The Design Laboratory, closely focused on eight geographic areas and seven corridors that would be representative of the community and developed in similar time frames as other areas. The shade coverage ranged from 29% on the Val Vista Drive corridor between Baseline and Guadalupe roads to 7% at San Tan Village, according to the study.

“I think from a long-term perspective, how we’re able to utilize that [data] is we can see which trees are doing well in particular areas, which trees may happen to have shorter lifespans in particular areas and keep better track of those maintenance costs,” Carmona said. “And then what Kyle and the whole team and the consultant really did is take a look and give us some guidelines on which trees we should put where.”

Azevedo, drawing on experience with other cities and knowing Gilbert’s own challenges—like broken Palo Verde trees along Higley Road seen after storms—then worked with the town on appropriate planting and maintenance goals, Mieras said.

“I like how Justin always said, ‘right tree, right place,’” Mieras said. “I keep talking about the Palo Verdes because those are the one we had the most trouble with. That tree would be perfect in the middle of a park or at the Riparian [Preserve], but not as a tree in a median on Higley Road.”

Long-term benefits

Overall, the plan calls for 30% shade coverage across developed Gilbert, but it further breaks down goals by area type: 30% for schools, community and regional parks, residential areas, commercial areas and streetscapes; 60% coverage in neighborhood parks, parking lots and retention basins.

One concept included was “cool hubs,” areas of respite from the sun and heat that could include built shade, trees, additional vegetation, seating and access to water, according to the plan.

Some of the goals came from a practicality, according to officials. Taylor said his initial thoughts on shade came from talking to moms in the parks about how the Arizona sun prevented use of playground equipment during much of the year.

“From a council perspective and time management perspective, we really wanted to start taking a look at how we could utilize all of Gilbert’s amenities and locations to have additional shade and really look at reducing the heat island effect in so many of our areas,” Carmona said, including parks and other gathering space as well as streets and sidewalks that people utilize.

However, the playground equipment issue is nearly moot now, as the town will be installing shade coverage this year to the last four town playgrounds that do not have it, said Jennika Horta, Interim Parks and Recreation programs manager.

Otherwise, the town has no specific roll-out plan for increasing the shade. The current Parks and Recreation Department annual budget is $542,619 for tree maintenance and replacement. The plan shows what costs can run for construction and materials for trees and irrigation or engineered shade structures, but notes specific projects would need to add in design, administration, project mobilization, traffic control and specific site conditions, like utility relocations.

It also covers a range of options to pay for the effort: from wastewater fees, since trees have proven runoff benefits, to public or corporate partnerships to a multitude of grants.

A timeline also is elusive. Carmona said it could be five or 10 years to start seeing a full canopy as new parks, trails and streets projects come online.

“It’s very subtle when you have these changes,” he said. “With the saying of ‘the best time to plant a tree was yesterday,’ yeah, it takes so long for it to become noticeable.”

Mieras said addressing the heat with shade has multiple benefits for residents.

“If it’s cooler, their energy bills aren’t going to be so high,” he said. “If we’ve got a tree canopy, maybe we don’t have as much turf under, and if we don’t have as much turf underneath, we’re not watering as much. And if we’re not watering as much, our water portfolio is bigger. It’s like an onion. You just keep peeling it, and there’s always another benefit to having shade in the community.”