Removals paused for properties that may qualify for a City of Minneapolis and US Forest Service grant that helps homeowners pay removal costs for condemned private trees
At its December 6, 2023 board meeting, Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board (MPRB) Commissioners voted unanimously to pass Resolution 2023-232, which immediately pauses contracted tree removal on private properties which may qualify for a recently announced $8 million U.S. Forest Service grant.
The grant, which was applied for by the City of Minneapolis Health Department in coordination with the MPRB, funds contracted removal of ash trees infested with emerald ash borer at homesteads in disadvantaged census tracts as defined by the White House Council on Environmental Quality Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool.
These funds cannot be used to pay for trees that have already been removed. The pause on tree removals will allow property owners who live in the areas identified in the grant and have trees that been condemned to qualify for the federal grant funding. The start date of the federal grant has yet to be determined.
Last week the Margaret A. Cargill Fund of the Saint Paul Minnesota Foundation provided a $500,000 donation to assist people residing within the same disadvantaged census tracts who have trees that have already been removed. These funds can be used retroactively.
The Margaret A. Cargill Fund of the Saint Paul Minnesota Foundation funds will first be applied retroactively to all private property tree removal assessments on homesteads residing within census tracts defined as disadvantaged by the White House Council on Environmental Quality Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool that are currently pending and remain unpaid with the MPRB.
As additional funds remain, the MPRB would prioritize assistance as noted below, until all funds are allocated:
- Clear any private property tree removal assessments that become pending between November 1, 2023, and the start of the federal grant listed above for homestead properties located within the same disadvantaged communities.
- Retroactive relief would then be considered for private property tree removal assessments that have been levied to Hennepin County to provide relief to homestead properties located in those same disadvantaged communities (as defined by the federal grant) beginning with assessments levied in 2022 utilizing a needs-based application process, as funds allow.
For Information about how the MPRB prunes, inspects and coordinates tree removal on privately owned property, visit the MPRB’s private tree web page.