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Branch to Past is Lost - San Antonio
Branch to Past is Lost - San Antonio
City's arborist says retailer in compliance with ordinance
A tree that may have been 300 years old has been cut down to make way for a new shopping center near Interstate 10 and Callaghan Road. The action has prompted some to call for strengthening the city's tree ordinance.
San Antonio Express-News
December 5, 2000
A live oak tree that some suspect was around before settlers from Spain's Canary Islands arrived here in 1731 lay uprooted Monday on a bluff where a Lowe's Home Improvement Warehouse is planned in northwest San Antonio.
The city does not contend Lowe's did anything illegal when it had the massive oak leveled late last week.
The city's arborist, Debbie Reid, said the city's 3-year-old tree ordinance does not grant protection to trees just because of their age and that Lowe's met the ordinance's other conditions requiring preservation of at least a quarter of the thriving trees outside of the building's site.
But others, including Councilwoman Bonnie Conner, who represents the area near Interstate 10 and Callaghan Road where the hardware store is being built, are saddened and angered that the tree could not have been saved.
"I was appalled. I couldn't believe it," Conner said, describing her reaction after being advised by staff that the tree had been removed. "If they had any opportunity to save that tree, they certainly should have."
Conner, a longtime tree preservation advocate, was among those who helped develop the city's tree protection ordinance.
She said the incident offers evidence that the city ordinance should be strengthened.
Local developers are working with city officials to resolve concerns about old trees on work sites before building plans are finalized, but "the big-box developers who are not based here" have been less willing to compromise or even discuss concerns about trees early in the planning process, Conner said.
"We need to do a better job than this," Conner said.
Melissa Simmons, a spokeswoman for Lowe's Companies Inc. in North Carolina, was not certain if the company had preliminary discussions with the city about the giant live oak, which was 38 inches in diameter, according to city measurements.
She said company officials apparently discussed saving the tree through relocation. That option was rejected because experts said the tree probably would not survive relocation, Simmons said.
"We make every effort to save as many trees as possible," she said.
She said the company not only met the minimum requirements of the city's tree ordinance, but exceeded it. Simmons said about half of the trees more than 8 inches in diameter - the size at which protection starts - were conserved at the site.
Simmons said the old oak could not be saved because it was in the wrong location and was located at a higher level that needed to be graded down for building purposes. The city said the tree was in an area destined to become the store's parking lot.
Lowe's is preparing the site at Callaghan and Horizon Hill just west of the interstate for a 135,000-square-foot home improvement center. The property covers a hilltop where the former landmark Strauder-Nelson home sat before last year, when a prior owner had it demolished.
Reid said city officials were not as convinced as others that the live oak was 300 years old. The arborist said rings of trees are not as clear a measure of a tree's age in semi-arid regions like San Antonio, but she agrees that the tree was old. Her estimate is that it was at least 100 years old.
Reid also said that national corporations use uniform plans for their buildings in an attempt to save money, while protecting the old oak would have required "innovative thinking and innovative design."
She would not say if she believes the tree ordinance is ineffective as critics contend, but said she was glad that the ordinance was being re-evaluated to see if it could be improved.
For those such as Loretta Van Coppenolle and Richard Alles of the Citizens' Tree Coalition, the ordinance needs to be repaired quickly before more trees are needlessly lost.
Alles said he also will try to persuade Reid that she has been misinterpreting the mitigation requirements imposed on developers who cut down "heritage trees" with diameters of 30 inches or more.
Reid said the mitigation requirement never has been clearly defined. She has used the requirement to preserve existing trees on construction sites rather than to encourage the planting of new trees. Reid said she would ask the city attorney's office to decide if that interpretation is correct.
Tree designations
San Antonio regulates the cutting of trees, requiring preservation of a percentage of the trees on a construction site that have trunks wider than 8 inches. But exceptions to the rules make the tree code ineffective, critics say.
Exceptions to the code
Most land inside Loop 1604 is exempt from the regulation through grandfathering prior to 1997.
Trees in or near the footprint of a new building are exempt from the ordinance.
Mitigation, or replacing a cut protected tree with a certain number of new trees is allowed; for example, a 20-inch tree can be replaced with ten 2-inch trees.
Copyright 2000 San Antonio Express-News
City's arborist says retailer in compliance with ordinance
A tree that may have been 300 years old has been cut down to make way for a new shopping center near Interstate 10 and Callaghan Road. The action has prompted some to call for strengthening the city's tree ordinance.
San Antonio Express-News
December 5, 2000
A live oak tree that some suspect was around before settlers from Spain's Canary Islands arrived here in 1731 lay uprooted Monday on a bluff where a Lowe's Home Improvement Warehouse is planned in northwest San Antonio.
The city does not contend Lowe's did anything illegal when it had the massive oak leveled late last week.
The city's arborist, Debbie Reid, said the city's 3-year-old tree ordinance does not grant protection to trees just because of their age and that Lowe's met the ordinance's other conditions requiring preservation of at least a quarter of the thriving trees outside of the building's site.
But others, including Councilwoman Bonnie Conner, who represents the area near Interstate 10 and Callaghan Road where the hardware store is being built, are saddened and angered that the tree could not have been saved.
"I was appalled. I couldn't believe it," Conner said, describing her reaction after being advised by staff that the tree had been removed. "If they had any opportunity to save that tree, they certainly should have."
Conner, a longtime tree preservation advocate, was among those who helped develop the city's tree protection ordinance.
She said the incident offers evidence that the city ordinance should be strengthened.
Local developers are working with city officials to resolve concerns about old trees on work sites before building plans are finalized, but "the big-box developers who are not based here" have been less willing to compromise or even discuss concerns about trees early in the planning process, Conner said.
"We need to do a better job than this," Conner said.
Melissa Simmons, a spokeswoman for Lowe's Companies Inc. in North Carolina, was not certain if the company had preliminary discussions with the city about the giant live oak, which was 38 inches in diameter, according to city measurements.
She said company officials apparently discussed saving the tree through relocation. That option was rejected because experts said the tree probably would not survive relocation, Simmons said.
"We make every effort to save as many trees as possible," she said.
She said the company not only met the minimum requirements of the city's tree ordinance, but exceeded it. Simmons said about half of the trees more than 8 inches in diameter - the size at which protection starts - were conserved at the site.
Simmons said the old oak could not be saved because it was in the wrong location and was located at a higher level that needed to be graded down for building purposes. The city said the tree was in an area destined to become the store's parking lot.
Lowe's is preparing the site at Callaghan and Horizon Hill just west of the interstate for a 135,000-square-foot home improvement center. The property covers a hilltop where the former landmark Strauder-Nelson home sat before last year, when a prior owner had it demolished.
Reid said city officials were not as convinced as others that the live oak was 300 years old. The arborist said rings of trees are not as clear a measure of a tree's age in semi-arid regions like San Antonio, but she agrees that the tree was old. Her estimate is that it was at least 100 years old.
Reid also said that national corporations use uniform plans for their buildings in an attempt to save money, while protecting the old oak would have required "innovative thinking and innovative design."
She would not say if she believes the tree ordinance is ineffective as critics contend, but said she was glad that the ordinance was being re-evaluated to see if it could be improved.
For those such as Loretta Van Coppenolle and Richard Alles of the Citizens' Tree Coalition, the ordinance needs to be repaired quickly before more trees are needlessly lost.
Alles said he also will try to persuade Reid that she has been misinterpreting the mitigation requirements imposed on developers who cut down "heritage trees" with diameters of 30 inches or more.
Reid said the mitigation requirement never has been clearly defined. She has used the requirement to preserve existing trees on construction sites rather than to encourage the planting of new trees. Reid said she would ask the city attorney's office to decide if that interpretation is correct.
Tree designations
San Antonio regulates the cutting of trees, requiring preservation of a percentage of the trees on a construction site that have trunks wider than 8 inches. But exceptions to the rules make the tree code ineffective, critics say.
Exceptions to the code
Most land inside Loop 1604 is exempt from the regulation through grandfathering prior to 1997.
Trees in or near the footprint of a new building are exempt from the ordinance.
Mitigation, or replacing a cut protected tree with a certain number of new trees is allowed; for example, a 20-inch tree can be replaced with ten 2-inch trees.
Copyright 2000 San Antonio Express-News
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