A. It is for the best interests of the city that a comprehensive plan for the planting and maintaining of trees within the city should be developed and established, and this chapter is adopted for the purpose of providing for such a plan, and for the purpose of establishing regulations relating to the planting and maintaining of trees in the streets of the city and other public and private places therein.

B. The city planning commission is charged with the duty of determining the types and varieties of trees for planting along the streets. Such determination shall be made by the commission after consultation with city urban forester. When such determination has been made, the commission shall report its determination in writing to the city council in a report to be designated “Official Tree Planting List, Bakersfield, California.” Said report shall be placed on file in the office of the city clerk, and after such filing, the same shall be the official determination of the commission. Thereafter said commission may, from time to time, file subsequent reports covering the same subject, each of which shall be complete in itself and each shall also be filed in the office of the city clerk. The latest of such reports so filed shall constitute the official list until supplanted by a subsequent list.

C. The director shall from time to time, at the request of the city council, prepare plans which shall designate, by means of a complete map of the city streets, a uniform method of street tree planting, the zoning of certain streets for certain types and varieties of trees, selecting suitable types for residential areas and special types of trees for nonresidential areas. Such plans shall show the intervals between said trees, and the place where each tree is to be planted. The director shall submit such plan or plans to the city council for its approval or modification, together with the recommendation of the city planning commission.

D. When the uniform plan in its original or modified form is adopted by the city council, it shall become the tree planting plan for the streets of the city, and shall be strictly adhered to in all future street planting projects. The director and the city planning commission shall develop such plans together. Copies of such plans shall be made and kept on file in the office of the city clerk where they may be obtained by the public. (Ord. 4122 § 1, 2003; prior code § 12.36.030)