When Palo Alto leaders adopted a new tree protection ordinance last year, their goal was to protect and expand a valuable asset of the city: its tree canopy.
On Wednesday evening, however, members of the city’s Planning and Transportation Commission suggested the new law may have gone too far and supported removing the ordinance to give property owners more flexibility to remove trees in poor condition or whose presence would compromise development plans.
The commission became the latest to weigh in on the proposed revision of the tree ordinance, promulgated in June 2022 but falling under increasing surveillance after numerous trees collapsed around the city during last winter’s storms, in some cases damaging homes. As a result, the council should consider numerous changes, including exceptions for trees deemed “incompatible with the immediate environment”, which are considered “defining” to adjacent trees or whose tree cover is beyond repair and encroaches on a home but does not currently meet the city’s “danger” criteria.
During debate, commissioners repeatedly acknowledged that trees, despite their many benefits, also carry risks and that local law needs to better account for those risks.
“I feel like this ordinance really prioritizes the lives of trees over the lives of our citizens,” Commissioner Bart Hechtman said during Wednesday’s debate. “I think we need to find a better balance between these two elements and to achieve that we need to be a little more flexible.”
Crescent Park resident Ben Lenail received a shocking reminder of the danger trees can pose to humans when a large oak tree fell on him while he and his golden retriever, Hazel, were in Rinconada Park on October 24.
Lenail, who uses a mobile scooter to get around, was with Hazel near the tennis courts near Walter Hays Elementary School when he heard a crack above him, he told this publication . Before he could move his scooter, the tree toppled on top of him.
Lenail said he was grateful that he and Hazel missed the trunk and larger branches of the tree. He remained covered in leaves and small branches until students, teachers and administrators at Walter Hays, who had just emerged, rushed in and helped him out of the foliage.
“I think it’s a miracle that I wasn’t really hurt. I had a few scrapes and cuts on my hands and neck, but other than that I’m completely unharmed, as is my dog,” he said. Lenail said in an interview.
Lenail said he saw no signs that the tree was dead or diseased, although it appeared to him that the tree had toppled over because its branches had not been pruned properly, a- he declared.
Leah Russin, who has criticized the tree ordinance, shared with the commission her experience last March, when a Douglas fir came across her house in Barron Park during a storm and caused significant damage which is still being repaired. She had attempted to have the tree removed earlier in the year, but her permit application was denied after the city’s new law took effect in June 2022.
Although the ordinance already contains provisions for removing trees that threaten or damage a home’s foundation or eaves, Russin argued that it should also take into account the circumstances in which a tree presents a danger to people – and not just to structures.
The city currently requires a report from the arborist confirming that a protected tree is diseased or dangerous before it can be removed. Russin said sometimes it’s impossible to predict a tree might fall.
“I strongly believe we need a lot more flexibility and the revisions proposed by staff are not sufficient,” Russin told the planning commission Nov. 8. “There is nothing in the ordinance that authorizes … eviction if a person or property is in danger. The reality is we can’t say that.”
Commissioner Cari Templeton shared this view and also suggested that the city relax some of the existing restrictions on tree cutting. In some cases, she noted, it can be difficult to tell that a tree is diseased or poses a danger.
Templeton alluded to the recent incident near the Rinconada tennis courts and argued for more flexibility to maintain the intent of the ordinance “without causing people frustration or insecurity.”
“It’s frustrating because we all have good intentions with this ordinance: we want to protect our canopy. Palo Alto has one of the most beautiful canopies, we’re really lucky. But we also have to understand that we have unintended consequences.”
The ordinance passed by the city last year increases the number of protected trees from about 81,720 to about 224,100, according to urban forester Peter Gollinger. It does this by designating all trees with a diameter of 15 inches or more as “protected” (redwoods, with an 18-inch threshold, are the only exception) and adding four species: bigleaf maple , incense cedar, blue oak and California oak. black oak — to a list of “protected species” that previously included only coast live oak, valley oak and coast redwood.
The city’s Parks and Recreation Commission, which helped craft the ordinance, last month supported staff proposal to ease some of the removal restrictions. The planning commission also approved the changes, although planning commissioners were more critical of the new law and its impacts on public safety and development projects. Although the planning commission did not take any votes, members generally agreed that Gollinger’s proposed changes are reasonable and that further adjustments may be necessary in the future.
Vice President Bryna Chang noted that the new ordinance, for all its imperfections, is far superior to the law in effect before it was passed. The new law, she said, puts Palo Alto “on par with other cities.” Without it, she said, the city “would look terrible and be embarrassing.”
“I think the challenge is that the only way to get the risk to zero is to avoid large trees falling. And I don’t think that’s what we want,” Chang said.
She also expressed concerns about giving developers too much leeway to remove trees that don’t fit their building designs. The new changes will explicitly give planning staff discretion to authorize tree felling for major development applications. Chang said she worries that some might game the system by proposing designs that don’t sufficiently protect the trees, knowing they would get permission from the city to cut them down.
Dashiell Leeds, organizer of the Sierra Club Loma Prieta chapter, also challenged a clause allowing tree felling in large subdivisions provided its removal is deemed consistent with the goals of the city’s urban forest master plan and that the promoter undertakes to have an increase in the canopy in 15 years.
“It appears that indeed in large developments no trees will be safe and no other provisions would apply to large developments,” Leeds said.
Gollinger noted that discretionary approval of tree removal is already part of the city’s process, although it is not explicitly mentioned in the ordinance.
“It’s something we’ve done in the past when we were looking at a project,” Gollinger said. “It has to make sense. We’re not going to endorse a massive removal of trees, but if removing them and replanting them makes sense in the long term, that’s what this is there for.”
