A near-final draft of the Carmel Forest Master Plan will be introduced at a community meeting Tuesday, the 20th, and then sent for environmental review before returning to the Planning Commission and City Council for adoption, city staff said.

The draft and next steps matter because the city completed an inventory of its public trees — “inventory 13,000 public trees,” an unnamed councilmember noted — and staff say the plan will guide species choices, planting and maintenance as the local climate changes.

Justin Ono, the city forester and a certified master arborist, told the meeting that the draft has been in development since about February 2021, that the plan was renamed from the earlier Forest Management Plan to the Carmel Forest Master Plan, and that the city has sought sustained public input. Ono said the city plans to present the draft at a community meeting and “send it off for environmental review” with the consultant Doodak. He said the environmental review and subsequent hearings are expected before a final council adoption “early next year.”

Ono credited the city’s new director, Ken Wysocki, with helping refine the draft. “Our new director, Ken Wysocki, kind of went over the fine tooth comb and helped really guide a a solid chunk of data driven science that we can put out as our master plan,” Ono said. The councilmember at the meeting emphasized the draft’s forward-looking approach to species selection, noting that “the trees of today… may not be the species that thrive in our environment in the future as climate changes.”

Staff also described an immediate maintenance action: Ono said a declining, statue-size Monterey pine near City Hall will be removed on a Saturday because it had become “a little unsafe” and was “going to start dropping branches.” He said crews will grind the stump and replant a specimen-size Monterey pine as a replacement.

City staff said the draft plan will be posted on the city’s website the day of the meeting and that the Forest and Beach Commission and a steering committee will provide final feedback before the environmental consultant begins review. Ono said the city ran a public process that included multiple public meetings and a public tree inventory during preparation of the draft.

The meeting also included routine acknowledgments — Ono wore a Hawaiian shirt and said, “It’s aloha Friday” — and references to related city business; staff urged residents to attend the community meeting and noted a display advertisement in The Pine Cone and a notice in the city’s Friday letter.

Next steps identified at the meeting: the community meeting to present the draft, environmental review by the consultant Doodak, a Planning Commission review, and a subsequent City Council adoption hearing expected early next year. The planned tree removal is scheduled to occur on a Saturday and staff said they expect to replant a specimen tree afterward.