New Proposed City Projects We Support
The Cupertino City Work Program (CWP) outlines the top priorities for the city for the next two years. For the 2025-2027 time period, the City Council met from November 2024 to March 2025 to discuss, rank, and finalize project priorities. The final list was adopted in the City Council meeting of March 18, 2025. Walk Bike Cupertino supported two new projects for inclusion into the 2025-2027 city priorities. One was adopted, one was not.
Adopted |
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Create an Urban Forest Master Plan |
Not Adopted |
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Eliminate the 100 day restricted operation of Blackberry Farms swimming pool and picnic areas and open them year-round |
In this article, we’ll provide more details about the Urban Forest Master Plan. A subsequent article will discuss the proposed year-round access to the Blackberry Farms swimming pool and picnic areas.
Cupertino Has a Low and Declining Tree Canopy
Cupertino has a low – and steadily declining – canopy, from decades of not prioritizing the issue. Data indicates that the tree canopy in Cupertino is also not uniformly distributed throughout the city. The census block group with the lowest percent tree canopy has 8% while the highest contains 46% tree canopy.
There is a marked difference in canopy between the east and west side of Cupertino with 56% of the city’s canopy concentrated in three neighborhoods – Inspiration Heights, Monta Vista North, and Monta Vista South.
Image courtesy of the 2019 Cupertino Tree Canopy Assessment Report by PlanITGeo.
Over the ten year period from 2009 to 2019, twelve out of the 20 neighborhoods in the city experienced either canopy loss or no gain. Again, there was a marked difference between east and west Cupertino. North Vallco lost 10% of their canopy due to the redevelopment of the Apple headquarters, but that is expected to recover as their newly planted trees get established.
Image courtesy of the 2019 Cupertino Tree Canopy Assessment Report by PlanITGeo.
Neighboring Cities Are Ahead of Us
Most of our neighboring cities have recognized the importance of a healthy tree canopy and are in various stages of developing or implementing an Urban Forest Plan.
Trees Provide Powerful Benefits
A healthy urban tree canopy offers powerful economic, health, and climate benefits. Trees must be chosen carefully with an eye to our changing climate, where temperatures are rising and the air is getting drier. Our temperatures in the next 20 to 30 years will become akin to the current temperatures in southern states like Arizona and New Mexico.
There is an effort underway to re-oak the Bay Area with a rich variety of oak trees that are resilient, drought-tolerant, and fire-resistant.
Many of our current trees will not survive this change and must be replaced with trees that thrive in these higher temperatures. The San Francisco Bay Area used to be a vast expanse of oak trees before suburbia took over. Slowly, oaks are coming back to the valley.
Image courtesy of the City of San Jose Community Forest Management Plan
WBC Supports an Urban Forest Plan
Walk Bike Cupertino has been a strong advocate for years for developing a Cupertino 10-Year Urban Forest Plan. We have spoken to city council and staff members multiple times on this topic since 2019, to fund the development of a comprehensive Urban Forest Plan written by a professional independent expert. Primary goals we would like to see the city accomplish over the next ten years are:
- Achieve uniform 30% canopy coverage in ALL neighborhoods of the city by 2035
- Plant climate resilient trees that thrive in the anticipated rising temperatures
- Plant trees that maximize health and economic benefits
We are thrilled that the current City Council has agreed to put this project in the 2025-2027 City Work Program priorities. If this is a topic that you are passionate about, and you’d like to get involved, drop us a line!