A. Project Management and Reporting • Assist the City in the development and management of project budget, schedule, and work plan to ensure completion of project goals. • Serve as technical liaison between the City of Newberry, the SC Forestry Commission, and the USDA Forest Service. • Assist the City with all necessary reporting forms to the SC Forestry Commission, including, but not limited to any required quarterly, semi-annual, and/or closeout reports, financial reimbursement forms, annual projections, MBE/WBE forms, and all other required forms to ensure compliance with the SC Forestry Commission and the USDA Forest Service. B. Community Involvement and Engagement • Assist with developing and implementing community outreach activities throughout the development of the master plan. Activities should engage the public and city staff. • Activities may include, but are not limited to, stakeholder meetings, general community meetings, community surveys, input sessions with City Council, Tree Board, and Planning Commission, meetings with other interested partners, and any other activity deemed necessary to collect input and data to be incorporated into the master plan. C. Analysis of Current Status, Challenges, and Opportunities • Review and analyze the City’s 2030 Comprehensive Plan, 2023 urban tree canopy assessment, and ordinances, policies, and procedures affecting the City’s urban forest. • Review and analyze development trends and assess their impact on the current and future urban forest. • Identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and challenges as it relates to the City’s current urban forest, as well as the City’s desired future urban forest. • Utilize i-Tree tools to analyze tree canopy and identify ecosystem benefits to derive values for air quality, stormwater uptake, heat mitigation, etc. • Analyze current tree canopy to assesses adequacy by neighborhood, zoning, enterprise areas, census tracts, historic districts, etc. • Identify and assess public and private resources that can contribute to the success and sustainability of the City’s urban forest. D. Urban Forest Master Plan Development • Develop the urban forest master plan based on current tree canopy and plantable areas and input from city staff and community involvement and engagement activities identified in the Scope of Work. • Develop the organization, layout, narrative text, and graphics of the urban forest master plan in a manner that presents the content in a concise, readable, and engaging style. The approved final plan should contain a framework of short-term and long-term actionable goals, objectives, and recommendations, strategies that mesh with the City’s overall goals and priorities, funding possibilities and resource needs, and an executive summary or other such document/section that can be easily distributed. The plan should include strategies for where, and how to plant trees or maintain existing tree cover, including spatial maps showing target areas to manage or plant. • The plan should be produced as both a PDF and an editable document, preferably Word. • Develop recommendations to increase efficiency, reduce costs and risk mitigation, and promote better coordination between departments, decision makers and the community at large. • Develop metrics to measure success and keep the plan updated and useful for the longterm.
