Trees of life

• By SONIA SMITH
• Advocate staff writer
• Published: Mar 30, 2008 - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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Around 70 volunteers brightened up the landscape at a new, mixed-income housing development in Old South Baton Rouge on Saturday morning, planting 80 trees as a light rain fell.

Clay soil quickly turned to mud underfoot, clinging to sneakers as the volunteers heaved the young trees out of their plastic planters and into pre-dug holes.

The 14 affordable single-family homes of the RiverSouth HOPE VI development — Helping Out People Everywhere — will be shaded by the trees planted in their front and back yards.

Baton Rouge Green, a community organization that has planted more than 28,000 trees in its 20-year history, received a $20,000 grant for its NeighborWoods program, dedicated to renewing the urban forest.

The planting was the third NeighborWoods planting of the year around the city, said Diane Losavio, executive director of Baton Rouge Green.

Jared Liu, director of programs at the Washington, D.C.-based Alliance for Community Trees that oversees the NeighborWoods program, was on hand to help with planting and to discuss the connections between affordable housing and trees.

Liu said a landscape plan had been developed to place the right trees in the right places around the houses. A tree that provides ample shade planted close to a home can cool it down in warm weather, reducing energy costs, he said.

“And shaded homes will sell faster,” he added.

Losavio said volunteers planted a mixture of nuttall oaks, willow oaks, sweet olives, magnolias, red maples and crape myrtles around the houses on East Polk Street.

Residents are scheduled to move into the houses within the next few months, said Richard Murray, director of the East Baton Rouge Housing Authority. Four of the 14 houses will be rented to tenants, Murray said. The other houses will be put on the market to sell at prices ranging from $79,000 to $99,000.

Rose Netter, 62, who will be moving into a house on the corner of Polk and Kansas streets, came out to watch the planting Saturday.
“I’m very emotional,” Netter said. “I’m just so moved to see all the people that are helping.”

A first-time homeowner, Netter currently lives in her mother’s house, down the street from the development. She will be moving into her new house with her daughter and granddaughter, she said.

Kristina McCray, 21, volunteered Saturday with other members of Delta Sigma Theta, a public service sorority at LSU.