Second set of Seattle tree protection poll findings affirms voters value urban forests

Back in Sep­tem­ber, our team at the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute joined forces with TreeP­AC to unveil polling show­ing that vot­ers across the ide­o­log­i­cal spec­trum are in enthu­si­as­tic agree­ment that Seat­tle should be doing more to pro­tect its tree canopy and favor a num­ber of ideas for updat­ing Seat­tle’s tree ordinance.

Today, we’re delight­ed to be able to share an addi­tion­al set of find­ings that affirms vot­ers’ strong and deep enthu­si­asm for keep­ing the Emer­ald City emerald.

These find­ings come from our Octo­ber 2021 gen­er­al elec­tion poll of the Seat­tle elec­torate, con­duct­ed for NPI by Change Research from Octo­ber 12th-15th.

Read­ers may recall that the elec­toral seg­ment of our Octo­ber sur­vey found Bruce Har­rell ahead for May­or, Ann Davi­son ahead of City Attor­ney, and Tere­sa Mosque­da and Sara Nel­son ahead for Seat­tle City Coun­cil. All of them went on to win their respec­tive races, demon­strat­ing that our polling had suc­cess­ful­ly chart­ed the city’s elec­toral land­scape as vot­ing was begin­ning across the metrop­o­lis.

As is our usu­al prac­tice, we fol­lowed up our elec­toral ques­tions with issue-based ones. From hav­ing stud­ied and ana­lyzed the results of our July 2021 Top Two sur­vey of the Seat­tle elec­torate, con­duct­ed before the August qual­i­fy­ing elec­tion, we knew that tree pro­tec­tion was among the caus­es that most res­onat­ed with Seat­tleites, regard­less of their polit­i­cal affil­i­a­tion, age, income, or ethnicity.

We want­ed to see if the larg­er uni­verse of gen­er­al elec­tion vot­ers would respond the same way, so we asked respon­dents about an addi­tion­al set of ideas for updat­ing Seat­tle’s tree ordi­nance and safe­guard­ing urban forests.

Like in July, we got an over­whelm­ing­ly pos­i­tive response. It is abun­dant­ly clear that Seat­tleites val­ue trees and urban forests and want their elect­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives to adopt poli­cies that will strength­en the city’s tree canopy.

What we found par­tic­u­lar­ly inter­est­ing was that big majori­ties of both Bruce Har­rel­l’s sup­port­ers and Lore­na González’s sup­port­ers backed pret­ty much every idea that we asked them to respond to. It was strik­ing: This tru­ly is an issue that Seat­tleites on both sides of the city’s mar­quee race are in agree­ment on.

Questions and responses

Let’s now take a look at each of the ques­tions that we asked and the respons­es that we received. Our first ques­tion asked if Seat­tle should fol­low in Port­land’s foot­steps and require devel­op­ers to pro­vide a com­pre­hen­sive Tree Sur­vey and Tree Plan at the begin­ning of the build­ing devel­op­ment process.

This sys­tem, which you can learn more about on the Rose City’s web­site, ensures that Port­land’s elect­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives and city plan­ners have sound, reg­u­lar­ly refreshed data they can use to guide devel­op­ment decisions.

QUESTION: Port­land, Ore­gon requires devel­op­ers to pro­vide a com­pre­hen­sive Tree Sur­vey and Tree Plan at the begin­ning of the build­ing devel­op­ment process. Devel­op­ers enter the Tree Sur­vey infor­ma­tion into a spread­sheet, which facil­i­tates data col­lec­tion on tree loss and replace­ment. Sup­port­ers say Seat­tle could fol­low suit to ensure the city main­tains a healthy tree canopy, while oppo­nents say it would be yet anoth­er reg­u­la­tion that would slow down devel­op­ment. Do you sup­port or oppose requir­ing devel­op­ers in the City of Seat­tle to com­plete a Tree Sur­vey and Tree Plan pri­or to con­struc­tion per­mits being approved?

ANSWERS:

• Sup­port: 74% 
  • Strong­ly sup­port: 50%
  • Some­what sup­port: 24%
• Oppose: 18%
  • Some­what oppose: 9%
  • Strong­ly oppose: 9%
• Not sure: 8%

About three quar­ters of respon­dents said they said sup­port­ed bring­ing a Port­land-like sys­tem to Seat­tle, with half in strong sup­port. (Many oth­er large cities also require devel­op­ers to pro­vide a com­pre­hen­sive Tree Sur­vey and Tree Plan before green­light­ing con­struc­tion.) Few­er than one in five vot­ers said they were opposed.

Vot­ers in all age groups were sup­port­ive by more than three-to-one mar­gins, but vot­ers six­ty-five and old­er, who over­whelm­ing­ly backed Bruce Har­rell for may­or in our sur­vey, were par­tic­u­lar­ly excit­ed about this tree sur­vey and tree plan idea. A whop­ping 84% of that age group expressed sup­port, with a mere 8% opposed.

Vot­ers in Seat­tle’s south­ern­most zip codes, where the tree canopy is less robust, were also quite enthu­si­as­tic. 79% of vot­ers in zip codes that for the most part cor­re­spond with the 1st Dis­trict indi­cat­ed sup­port, while 72% of vot­ers in zip codes most­ly cor­re­spond­ing with the 2nd Dis­trict expressed sup­port. 73% of vot­ers in zip codes most­ly cor­re­spond­ing with the 3rd Dis­trict expressed support.

Only one dis­trict north of the Ship Canal was enthu­si­as­tic as the like­ly south­ern coun­cil dis­tricts: the like­ly 4th, where sup­port was 77%.

Our sec­ond ques­tion asked Seat­tleites if they’d like to see envi­ron­men­tal poli­cies and tree man­age­ment brought under the juris­dic­tion of a new city department:

QUESTION: Over­sight of trees in Seat­tle is cur­rent­ly over­seen by nine city depart­ments. Do you sup­port or oppose cre­at­ing a new Seat­tle Depart­ment of Envi­ron­ment and Cli­mate that would include a con­sol­i­dat­ed urban forestry division?

ANSWERS:

• Sup­port: 72% 
  • Strong­ly sup­port: 44%
  • Some­what oppose: 28%
• Oppose: 18%
  • Some­what oppose: 6%
  • Strong­ly oppose: 12%
• Not sure: 10%

More than sev­en in ten vot­ers backed this idea overall.

González vot­ers were espe­cial­ly enthu­si­as­tic, with 54% of them express­ing strong sup­port and anoth­er 25% some­what sup­port­ive, for a total of 79%.

38% of Har­rell vot­ers offered strong sup­port while anoth­er 25% said they were some­what sup­port­ive, for a total of 67% supportive.

As with the tree sur­vey and tree plan ques­tion, Har­rel­l’s old­er vot­ers were even more enthu­si­as­tic. 49% of those ages six­ty-five and up expressed strong sup­port. Anoth­er 25% were some­what sup­port­ive, for a total of 74% supportive.

Our third and final ques­tion asked about five ideas for updat­ing Seat­tle’s tree pro­tec­tion ordi­nance, which has been await­ing a makeover for twelve years.

QUESTION: Please indi­cate your sup­port or oppo­si­tion for each of the fol­low­ing ideas for updat­ing Seat­tle’s tree pro­tec­tion ordinance.

IDEAS & ANSWERS:

Give pri­or­i­ty to plant­i­ng native and cli­mate resilient trees

Sup­port: 89%		Oppose: 6%		Not sure:
Strong­ly	Some­what	Some­what	Strong­ly	5%
66%	23%	3%	3%	———

Charge devel­op­ers replace­ment fees for trees that they remove and don’t replant, with the amount of the fee cor­re­spond­ing to the size of the removed tree to make up for lost canopy

Sup­port: 77%		Oppose: 15%		Not sure:
Strong­ly	Some­what	Some­what	Strong­ly	8%
56%	22%	7%	8%	———

Increase build­ing set­backs to allow larg­er, street-fac­ing trees to be planted

Sup­port: 67%		Oppose: 20%		Not sure:
Strong­ly	Some­what	Some­what	Strong­ly	14%
38%	29%	10%	10%	———

Reduce the num­ber of sig­nif­i­cant, non-excep­tion­al trees that can be removed by pri­vate prop­er­ty own­ers from three (3) per year to two (2) in three years

Sup­port: 55%		Oppose: 28%		Not sure:
Strong­ly	Some­what	Some­what	Strong­ly	17%
29%	26%	14%	14%	———

Low­er the upper lim­it for excep­tion­al tree pro­tec­tion from thir­ty (30) inch­es in tree diam­e­ter to twen­ty-four (24) inch­es in diameter

Sup­port: 50%		Oppose: 25%		Not sure:
Strong­ly	Some­what	Some­what	Strong­ly	25%
29%	21%	12%	13%	———

Sup­port for these ideas ranged from 89% in favor of giv­ing pri­or­i­ty to plant­i­ng native and cli­mate resilient trees to 50% for low­er­ing the upper lim­it for excep­tion­al tree pro­tec­tion from thir­ty inch­es in tree diam­e­ter to twen­ty-four inch­es. Even the least pop­u­lar idea found a two-to-one mar­gin of support.

Charg­ing devel­op­ers replace­ment fees for trees they remove and don’t replant is, aside from pri­or­i­tiz­ing native and cli­mate resilient trees, the most pop­u­lar of the ideas we test­ed. Every age group real­ly liked it. It’s also anoth­er idea that is extreme­ly pop­u­lar in Seat­tle’s west­ern and south­ern neigh­bor­hoods, with 87% of vot­ers in like­ly coun­cil dis­trict #1 sup­port­ive, 81% of vot­ers in like­ly coun­cil dis­trict #2 sup­port­ive, and 85% of vot­ers in like­ly coun­cil dis­trict #3 supportive.

85% of González vot­ers also favor charg­ing devel­op­ers replace­ment fees. They are just as keen about mov­ing for­ward with this idea as the old­er vot­ers ages six­ty-five and up (84% sup­port­ive) who told us they most­ly favor Harrell.

Increas­ing set­backs got a thumbs up from two-thirds of respondents.

Mak­ing adjust­ments to the rules for removal of sig­nif­i­cant, non-excep­tion­al trees, and broad­en­ing the def­i­n­i­tion of what an excep­tion­al tree did­n’t get sky-high lev­els of sup­port, but were nev­er­the­less backed by sol­id majori­ties of our poll respon­dents. No idea we test­ed had more oppo­si­tion than support.

Survey methodology

• Change Research, a Pub­lic Ben­e­fit Cor­po­ra­tion based in Cal­i­for­nia, sur­veyed 617 like­ly Novem­ber gen­er­al elec­tion vot­ers in Seat­tle from Tues­day, Octo­ber 12th to Fri­day, Octo­ber 15th on behalf of the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute. All respon­dents par­tic­i­pat­ed online.
• Change used tar­get­ed adver­tise­ments on Face­book, tar­get­ed adver­tise­ments on Insta­gram, and text mes­sages sent via the echo19 and/or Scale To Win plat­forms to cell phone num­bers list­ed on the vot­er file for indi­vid­u­als who qual­i­fied for the survey’s sam­ple uni­verse, based on their vot­er file data.
• Regard­less of which of these sources a respon­dent came from, they were direct­ed to a sur­vey host­ed on SurveyMonkey’s web­site. Ads placed on social media tar­get­ed all adults liv­ing in Seat­tle. Those who indi­cat­ed that they were not reg­is­tered to vote were terminated.
• As the sur­vey field­ed, Change used dynam­ic online sam­pling: adjust­ing ad bud­gets, low­er­ing bud­gets for ads tar­get­ing groups that were over­rep­re­sent­ed and rais­ing bud­gets for ads tar­get­ing groups that were under­rep­re­sent­ed, so that the final sam­ple was rough­ly rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the pop­u­la­tion across dif­fer­ent groups.
• The sur­vey was con­duct­ed in Eng­lish, and has a mod­eled mar­gin of error of 4.1% at the 95% con­fi­dence interval.

Addi­tion­al infor­ma­tion about the sur­vey’s method­ol­o­gy is avail­able here.

Voters agree, now it’s time for City Hall to agree

Whether they told us they were vot­ing for Bruce Har­rell or M. Lore­na González for may­or — or for any oth­er set of can­di­dates, for that mat­ter — vot­ers in Seat­tle are in agree­ment that the city could use a stronger tree ordi­nance that gives the Emer­ald City a bet­ter shot at ensur­ing it lives up to its name as it grows.

The take­away is clear: the Seat­tle City Coun­cil and incom­ing May­or Bruce Har­rell must pri­or­i­tize the work of updat­ing the city’s tree ordi­nance. This is imper­a­tive to imple­ment­ing a true equi­ty-focused envi­ron­men­tal and social jus­tice agenda.

In addi­tion to tak­ing steps to pro­tect exist­ing canopy, the city needs to accel­er­ate its efforts to grow the canopy by plant­i­ng more native and cli­mate resilient trees.

The need­ed work can’t keep get­ting rel­e­gat­ed to the back burn­er as it did under May­ors Durkan and Mur­ray. Pro­posed updates to the city’s tree ordi­nance have been in bureau­crat­ic pur­ga­to­ry for twelve years and counting.

Mean­while, the cli­mate cri­sis is get­ting worse.

We know that neigh­bor­hoods with­out suf­fi­cient tree canopy are far­ing worse in heat­waves and exhibit­ing more extreme heat island effects than their leafi­er coun­ter­parts. It’s no coin­ci­dence that the neigh­bor­hoods with the fewest trees have high­er con­cen­tra­tions of Black and Brown and low income inhabitants.

May­or-elect Har­rell and the Coun­cil should resolve to com­plete the process of updat­ing the city’s tree ordi­nance with strong new pro­vi­sions by July of 2022 so that the city’s poli­cies can be bet­ter aligned with its val­ues as soon as possible.