CINCINNATI — The City of Cincinnati wants to plant tens of thousands of new trees to help decrease temperatures.
"Communities that don't have trees are hot," said Ollie Kroner, director of Cincinnati’s Office of Environment & Sustainability.
Some neighborhoods in Cincinnati get hotter than others. In 2020, volunteers collected temperatures in neighborhoods across the city, as part of a study funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Hotter areas, like Over-the-Rhine and the West End, tend to sit near highways and have more urban development.
"When we map where we have urban heat islands, on a hot summer day we see some communities that are 10 degrees hotter on the sidewalk than others," Kroner said.
Kroner said about 18,000 households in the Cincinnati area don’t have air conditioning.
“When we have a heat emergency, it's a public health emergency,” he said.
Kroner said planting trees can help cool areas during hot days.
“When we plant trees, and we invest in green infrastructure, it cools during the hottest days, and it soaks up all that rainwater when we have these major storm events,” he said.
As part of the 2023 Green Cincinnati Plan, the city plans to focus tree-planting efforts in neighborhoods with the highest heat island effects.
Kroner said the city is actively pursuing federal resources to ensure funding to plant trees across the region.
He added that the city is running out of public places to plant more trees and is looking toward opportunities to plant on private land.
Kroner said the city has community partners who are assisting in tree-planting efforts. The city also offers a program each year where homeowners can request a free tree.
Applications for the ReLeaf program are expected to be released this fall. The program has provided more than 20,000 free trees to residents over more than 30 years.
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