It is recommended that the Mayor and City Commission of the City of Miami Beach, Florida authorize the issuance of Request for Qualifications (RFQ) for urban forestry services.

One of the City of Miami Beach’s most important attributes is its iconic and lush urban tree canopy.

The City of Miami Beach has been advancing with significant infrastructure improvements and roadwork initiatives as adaptive measures to climate change. While necessary, these improvements and initiatives, as well as climatic changes, are directly impacting the City’s urban tree canopy, one of the City’s most important attributes.

The specialized management of the City’s distinct urban tree canopy is vital to the long term-health and sustainability of the urban forest. To continue making improvements to the urban forest, the Environment and Sustainability Department is in need of specialized services that include both consulting services and actual tree work for the management of the canopy. The services will be a vital component to the preservation of the existing tree canopy during ongoing and future citywide projects, and will assist project managers in better assessing means of preservation throughout all phases of design and construction.

The purpose of this RFQ is to contract with a pool of qualified firms who would be tasked with projects relating to tree assessments and qualitative data, urban forestry consulting, and advanced tree care and analysis. Detailed information on the scope of services required is included in Section 4 of the RFQ. Through this RFQ the City intends on preserving and protecting its existing tree canopy while providing advanced research that will be used to create and adopt new and future measures to improve the City’s urban tree canopy benefits.

Accordingly, the City is seeking to engage an urban forestry consultant to provide the following services:

1.  Urban Forestry Consultation
• Development of cyclical Urban Tree Canopy Assessments.
• Conducting GIS Inventory Updates.
• Post-Storm Inventory updates .
• Conducting specialized analytical work related to the sustainable management of our urban tree canopy.
• Level three Tree Risk assessment not limited to the use of specialized equipment methodology such as the need for tissue testing, drone inspection and resistance drilling.
• Development of specialized tree preservation plans for specimen or heritage trees.
• In depth assessments of high valued trees that may impact public safety or property.
• Post Storm assessment of high valued three canopy.

2.       Advance Tree Care consists of but is not limited to:

• Cabling, construction and installation of tree support systems, air excavation efforts, and soil amendments.
• Pest control services for applying pesticides in public ROW
• Providing tree care equipment services, which may include but is not limited to aerial lifts, tree chippers, grappler trucks, chainsaws, and other tree pruning equipment

Funding for the urban forestry services is subject to the approval of funds through the City’s budgeting process. The annual expenditures for these services are estimated to be $150,000. 

I recommend that the Mayor and City Commission approve the issuance of the RFQ 2021-207-AY for urban forestry services.