Downtown property owners let street trees die, ignored warnings. Now the public is footing the bill.

A city program meant to plant trees in Spokane’s poorest neighborhoods is being used to subsidize downtown property owners who frequently delayed or ignored calls to replace the trees.

Some of these trees were a legacy of public investment, with downtown tree wells dug, irrigated and planted ahead of Expo ’74.

City law requires that property owners maintain the health of street trees on their land, and to replace the trees if necessary. In recent years, dozens of downtown trees have succumbed for various reasons, whether to vandalism, choked out as they overgrew their well or, in at least one case, after a drunken driver crashed into them.

But most often, the trees have died because they weren’t being irrigated, according to city officials.

Those dead trees were frequently ignored, sometimes for years at a time, despite repeated deadlines from the city’s urban forester. Last year, when asked about the lack of compliance with city laws requiring street trees be maintained, Spokane Mayor Lisa Brown suggested the city could start to enforce its tree laws with fees and penalties, saying, “Accountability is accountability.”

Many of those trees are now being replaced – after the city instead offered property owners dozens of free trees that were slated for the city’s poorest neighborhoods. More recently, the Spokane City Council agreed to provide property owners with additional taxpayer-subsidized accommodations.

The City Council approved a one-year pilot program in July to “reforest” downtown Spokane, investing more to remind property owners of their responsibilities – often not for the first time – offering the use of city urban foresters at zero cost to property owners to help oversee and manage tree replacement. The pilot program also provides additional funds to the Downtown Spokane Partnership to provide the “proactive tree stewardship” that property owners have neglected.

Staff provided no estimate of the cost of the program to the City Council ahead of its approval.

This pilot, as well as the funds for free trees that had previously been exclusively gifted to homeowners in neighborhoods outside of downtown, is paid for with a federal grant meant to spread the benefits of a healthy tree canopy to more neighborhoods, particularly poorer ones that tend to have fewer trees.

Councilman Jonathan Bingle spearheaded the pilot program on the city’s side, reminding his fellow council members recently that the Riverside Neighborhood is itself low income .

Bingle is correct: Downtown Spokane is one of the city’s poorest neighborhoods. Roughly half of downtown’s 1,900 residents live in poverty, compared to 15% citywide, according to census data.

But downtown is unusual in other ways. The people who live in the Riverside Neighborhood are not the ones ultimately responsible for maintaining that tree canopy – the property owners are, and they are almost exclusively not living in their downtown properties. Roughly 60% of all residences in Spokane are owner-occupied. In downtown Spokane, that figure drops to 6%.

Last year, The Spokesman-Review found dozens of downtown property owners who had been notified by the city that their trees had died and that they were required to replace them. Many missed multiple deadlines, if they could even be reached. The city’s inventory of dead and dying street trees is almost entirely complaint driven, and the roughly 70 complaints filed in 2023 alone for downtown trees range from a single dying tree to as many as 13 at a time.

The Cowles Real Estate company had by far the most complaints filed against it. It has fielded multiple complaints since 2023 for dozens of dead trees on at least five properties collectively valued at well over $50 million. The Cowles Company owns The Spokesman-Review.

Next to a company building on Monroe Street that used to house its printing presses and is adorned with busts of important historic city leaders, 13 trees have stood dead, draped in Christmas lights, for at least two years. The company recently spent about $200,000 to renovate a floor of the building to launch a pickleball club and comply with fire code, according to permit records.

Despite repeated notices and multiple missed deadlines, no trees have been replaced. The company requested replacement trees from the city, but never picked them up, according to city records. Asked why, a company spokesperson didn’t answer, instead sending statements affirming the company’s commitment to “a healthy and vibrant streetscape in downtown Spokane …”

As Councilman Michael Cathcart recently contended to his colleagues, healthy tree canopies can make an area feel wealthy, even if it isn’t. Aside from the physical benefits of holding onto stormwater and shedding some of the midsummer heat, properly maintained trees can make an area feel invested in, and that has a psychological impact on how residents perceive their neighborhood.

But dead trees feel like “an embarrassment,” said Darlean Tipke-Kane, a resident of the Cathedral Plaza Apartments, subsidized housing owned by Catholic Charities. She filed the most recent complaint against the Cowles Real Estate company for five dead trees next to a $2 million parking garage on Sprague Avenue that borders the apartments.

“There’s people living in that giant building, and we’re from all walks of life, and we walk this route,” Tipke-Kane said. “It’s just an embarrassment. It’s a community good, for the good of all. And when you don’t have trees in a place, it’s really destructive to the community for all sorts of reasons.”

In April 2024, a Cowles Real Estate representative said irrigation issues had been addressed and trees would soon be replaced.

Sixteen months later, none of the active complaints against the company have been resolved. A new one was added last May.

But the last 16 months haven’t been spent idle, company spokesperson Rita Koefod wrote in an email – it has been spent lobbying for the city to provide additional subsidies and lower barriers for downtown tree replacement, which the City Council approved in July.

Koeford said in an email on Friday that the company would begin replacing dead trees on Oct. 20.

Koefod did not respond to questions about using subsidies.

There are unusual circumstances that can make it more difficult to maintain or replace a tree downtown. Lanes of traffic typically need to be shut down to pull a tree out by the roots.

It costs roughly $700 for the city to plant a downtown street tree, Kosanke estimated, plus around another $550 for permitting and street obstruction fees, depending on whether a lane needed to be closed during removal. But costs can vary dramatically depending on the location, the size of a tree being removed and other factors.

Levi Zeik, a board-certified master arborist with Barlett Tree Experts, estimated that it could cost $700-$1,000 to plant a new tree downtown, another $350-$850 for permitting and obstruction costs if they’re needed, and $1,000-$1,500 to remove a sizable dead tree.

Downtown Spokane also has a poorly documented tangle of public and private irrigation systems that reportedly make it confusing to know who’s responsible for turning the water on or repairing a broken water line.

Bingle has requested state funding to help map those irrigation systems to reduce this burden for property owners.

At least one council member who voted for the pilot program, which was approved unanimously, now regrets that decision and said he was not briefed about the violations and ignored deadlines racked up by the property owners lobbying for the subsidy.

“That’s a problem, and I do not think that this is the best use of funds,” said Councilman Paul Dillon. “The way this was framed was different when I voted for it.”

Pia Hallenberg, tree advocate and chair of the Riverside Neighborhood Council, is glad that there will be progress removing the eyesores left around downtown, though she’s frustrated that property owners slow-rolled replacing them.

“Of course they can (afford to),” she said. “They just don’t want to. And of course they know what the law is, but as long as they can stall the process, they don’t have to pay. The property owners know they’re not going to get fined.”

Bingle agrees that more attention needs to be paid to monitoring and maintaining downtown’s street trees and hopes there won’t be “many excuses” for trees to die going forward.

Hallenberg acknowledges that dead trees aren’t exactly the pressing concern of the day. But the neglect they represent still gets under her skin.

“I understand there are issues in the world that are a lot more important than street trees – homelessness and hungry children, I get that,” she said. “But come on. It’s like that one person on your block who never mows their lawn. Me and my neighbors, we pick up trash, we sweep, we clean – try harder!”