The nearly 50-year-old Norway Maples were dead and dying (Image: CHS)

As Seattle hopes to help cool its streets and sidewalks against global warming by achieving 30% tree-canopy coverage across every area of the city in the next twelve years, the new stumps along Capitol Hill’s 15th Ave are an example of the challenge — and the opportunity — in the numbers.

The old Norway Maples just removed from the sidewalk along the Capitol Hill Kaiser Permanente campus were dead — and had been for years. Planted in 1977, the maples were maintained by the Seattle Department of Transportation. Coming up on 50 years later, most of the 15th Ave trees were completely dead with branches and bark falling off. A few hangers-on were in serious decline.

SDOT says it hired a contractor to remove the old maples “due to safety concerns, particularly because they were adjacent to Metro bus lines.”

SDOT says there is no evidence “porous paving contributed to the trees’ decline” as the city’s tree wells have been filled in recent years to prevent injuries to pedestrians and people using tree-lined sidewalks.

Despite the city’s ambitious goals of quickly establishing a 30% tree canopy cover, there is no plan for re-planting. But there will be a first step.

“We’re adding these locations to our queue for stump removal, which is the first step in preparing the sites for potential replanting,” a SDOT spokesperson tells CHS.

“While there isn’t a designated timeline for replacement at this point, the sites will be considered for future planting as opportunities and resources allow.”

There are hopes for more transportation levy money to help create leafier cover for the city’s sidewalks and streets. In a study funded by Washington State Department of Natural Resources Urban and Community Forestry Program, SDOT looked at four neighborhoods across Seattle including Capitol Hill’s E Olive Way area to better understand the current canopy and challenges to reaching the 30% mark in a densely populated, highly developed area.

The study found the E Olive Way neighborhoods currently measure out with around 15% canopy leaving a doubling required needed to reach the state-recommended level. The SDOT study did the work of identifying exactly how sidewalk planting across this area around E Olive Way could help the neighborhood — and how many additional trees on building properties and development are needed to reach the mark.

“With many apartment buildings and limited open space, finding room to plant trees in Capitol Hill/Olive Way is difficult. In a dense neighborhood like Capitol Hill, every new street tree requires planning and coordination,” the report on the study reads. “The city identified potential street tree planting sites using mapping analysis and on-site inspections. In addition to 105 potential street tree planting sites and 289 existing street trees, this census tract requires 196 more trees to reach the city’s goal of 30%.”

“While 105 potential street trees represent only part of what’s needed, each new street tree is progress toward our overall goal,” the report optimistically concludes.

The study includes three key barriers to adding more street trees to the area:

• Limited space: Capitol Hill/Olive Way is highly developed, leaving few open areas for new tree plantings.

• Utility conflicts: A high volume of underground pipes, overhead wires, and other utility infrastructure can limit where street trees can be planted. For example, an underground electrical vault in a planting strip would prevent planting street trees nearby.

• Pavement removal: In many locations, paved surfaces would need to be removed to create space for street trees.

It recommends changes including requiring minimum 5-foot-wide planting strips, and increased setbacks “from driveways, poles, hydrants, and other infrastructure” to leave more room for canopy. Increased setbacks bring many other challenges, of course, for a region in the midst of a perhaps never-ending housing crisis.

Part of the study also included surveying people and businesses in the area about ideas they would support to increase the area’s canopy.

You can read more about the planting study here.

SDOT, meanwhile, is gearing up to plant more trees on Capitol Hill. It recently was conducting a new survey in areas of Seattle with less than 25% canopy coverage as it pursues strategies for quickly adding new leafy areas.

Overall, the city says Capitol Hill registers with barely more than 15% coverage as of spring 2025.

SDOT says it will use the new survey results to shape is tree planting strategies.

Back on 15th, SDOT says the tree wells will soon have the old maple stumps grinded out and removed to be prepared for future plantings. Then the sites will be added to City Hall’s roster of “available planting sites” in the official street tree inventory. They could then be included in a future round of city planting as funding is made available. A neighbor like Kaiser Permanente could also step in to help the city reach its goals. CHS asked the multistate integrated managed care consortium about the trees and was referred to SDOT. Kaiser has not responded about the opportunity to help re-plant its street.

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