A tender process opened last week to source, plant and maintain a minimum of 1300 trees through Sebastopol for two years.

Some Sebastopol streets will receive more than 100 new large and medium trees, including Morgan Street, Vickers Street and Walker Street.

Council hopes to increase the level of tree canopy in Ballarat to 40 per cent by 2040 as part of the Urban Forest Action plan it adopted in 2019.

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Suburbs on Ballarat's urban fringe including Sebastopol, Wendouree, Delacombe and Miners Rest have been targeted by the plan because of their vulnerability to heat stress due to lack of tree cover.

Those suburbs had an approximate tree cover of between five and 13 per cent when the plan was adopted, with Ballarat's overall tree cover measured at 17 per cent in 2014.

Tender documents state Sebastopol has one of the lowest percentages of canopy cover in the city, making it vulnerable to the impacts of rising temperatures.

Of the 1352 total trees planned to be planted, 910 will be large and 442 medium-sized.

Council provided tender applicants with a list of 44 indicative tree species including a wide range of eucalypts as well as acacias, banksias and maples with trees to be at least 1.6 metres tall.

City of Ballarat Mayor Daniel Moloney said the tree planting project was biased towards those four suburbs which had missed out on key infrastructure in their early development.

"This is definitely a catch-up exercise but one that we recognise that needs to happen because while the newer estates all have mandated tree planting... that hasn't been the case in some of the more established suburbs that were built mainly throughout the 50s and 60s in Ballarat," he said.

"There are a few areas that achieve the target of 40 per cent really easily and there's obviously the leafier suburbs and the forest fringe suburbs such as Mount Helen and Buninyong, but it's been at times as low as four per cent tree canopy coverage in places like Wendouree and Sebastopol.

"The aim is 40 per cent eventually so we do need to bias the tree planting in those areas pretty seriously over the next few years."

Cr Moloney said the Sebastopol planting comes after 2500 trees were planted in Wendouree last year.

"They're areas that needed it and, for me, it's just heartening to see the suburbs that have just missed out on so many things and the basics of trees, footpaths and decent lighting, they should be the fundamentals of any street, to see them get that basic infrastructure is really important," he said.

"Even when the trees are just waist high, they might not provide any meaningful shelter or shade, but they do still make an area look greener and more lively.

"Even though that work that starts now might not be truly of benefit until the 2040s, you have to start at some point."

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