VENICE, Fla. (SNN) — The City of Venice says it’ll replace trees lost to Hurricane Ian in the coming weeks. This comes after the Venice City Council approved the use of tree mitigation funds for tree replacement at their March 14, 2023, meeting.
The federal government is also funding this with a grant from the USDA Forest Service. The total project to plant and establish these 70 trees will cost $57,000.
The USDAFS is providing $18,500, and the city’s tree mitigation fund will be utilized to fund the balance. Tree mitigation funds are collected from developers when they are not able to plant all the required trees on a project.
Some funds are also collected as mitigation for trees wrongly removed.
Seventy trees will be planted primarily in public parks, where Venice lost its tree canopy. The city says it lost around 2 percent of its canopy from Hurricane Ian last year. They’ll also be planted in heat islands identified in a 2020 Canopy Analysis.