Austin Transportation & Public Works and a city technical advisory group presented a 12‑point set of recommendations on Oct. 7 aimed at removing barriers to planting and maintaining street trees in the public right of way.

Michelle Marks, a TPW presenter who described herself as a facilitator for the Technical Assistance Advisory Review Panel (TARP), told the Urban Transportation Commission the group’s work responds to a March 2024 City Council green‑infrastructure resolution. "They create a safer, kind of more comfortable active transportation network for people walking to bus stops and riding their bikes," Marks said, describing multiple benefits of street trees.

TARP’s recommendations — intended as coordinated administrative and programmatic changes — fall into four categories: regulatory foundations, process improvements, maintenance and capital planning. The 12 actions include:

- Consolidating and clarifying right‑of‑way guidance by updating the Transportation Criteria Manual (TCM) into a unified Right‑of‑Way Design Manual that would state where trees are required, minimum soil volume, pit sizes and fee‑in‑lieu options;
- Updating standard plans and specifications for tree wells, irrigation and soil cells;
- Coordinating with Austin Water and Austin Energy to align utility clearances and explore techniques such as root barriers and soil cells;
- Updating the city’s approved street‑tree species list to reflect climate resilience and microclimates;
- Considering whether legislative code changes are needed if administrative updates prove insufficient;
- Establishing an interdepartmental early‑stage review to resolve right‑of‑way allocation conflicts before projects are tied up in review;
- Improving reviewer and developer guidance and training;
- Eliminating the current requirement for one‑off license agreements to place trees in the right of way;
- Exploring city‑led maintenance programs instead of individual license agreements, while noting city maintenance would require sustained new funding;
- Creating an inventory and condition assessment of the city’s street‑tree assets;
- Developing a capital plan for green infrastructure investment; and
- Incorporating street‑tree costs into baseline budgets for major capital projects where feasible.

Marks told commissioners that eliminating license agreements is intended to remove a repetitive administrative hurdle that currently makes private right‑of‑way plantings costly to implement. "So, number 8 here is just to eliminate the requirement for license agreements," Marks said. The panel also suggested cities often require adjacent property owners to maintain trees in front of their property, but TARP recommended exploring a city‑run maintenance program to ensure consistent, professional care.

Commissioners and TARP members discussed practical constraints — space in narrow rights of way, conflicts with bus lanes, sidewalks and utilities, and the need to prioritize competing uses — and emphasized early interdepartmental coordination. Several commissioners urged that any city‑led maintenance plan must be paired with identified funding. TPW said the TARP report will be provided to council and that staff will submit a memo to the mayor and council outlining departmental responses and an implementation workplan.

The panel also proposed pilot projects and phased implementation; TPW plans to brief boards and commissions before forwarding a memo and the full TARP report to the City Council mobility committee and mayor and council later in October.