Tempest over trees: Residents question wisdom of removals

By Mary Carey
Staff Writer

Published on July 20, 2007

A full-blown tempest over trees is on the horizon.

The town plans to remove six downtown trees and replace them with more trees while workers renovate the sidewalks this summer, but critics complained at a hearing held by the tree warden last Tuesday and now the matter moves to the Select Board.

Opposition to the plan to remove a crabapple and two cherry trees on North Pleasant Street in the vicinity of Zanna will delay planned reconstruction of the sidewalk and a stone slab wall leading to the street until next year, Town Engineer Jason Skeels said.

He said improvements to the Amity Street sidewalk in front of Jones Library would be delayed also because of opposition to the removal of a linden and two Norway maples at that location.

The renovations are part of a multi-year undertaking to bring the sidewalks into compliance with standards for people with disabilities and to improve the streetscape. Opposition has been mounted every time a tree has had to come down.

Residents questioned why the town insists on renovating the sidewalks if it means cutting down trees. The town is strapped for money, Carol Gray, of South East Street, argued at the public hearing.

Alan Snow, a community forester with the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation and the new tree warden, suggested residents view the work as an opportunity to provide better living conditions to downtown trees. Adequate root space is key to trees' health, Snow said. Narrow grass belts of 8 feet or less make a poor environment, especially for larger trees.

Before Skeels could present the sidewalk construction plan, Nancy Gordon, who was trained as a forester, said the work should not go on, used an expletive and left.

Molly Turner, a library trustee, questioned why members of the Shade Tree Committee, who have supported removing the trees, were not advocating for the trees.

"Think about the poor tree," said Dennis Ryan, a University of Massachusetts arboriculturist and member of the Shade Tree Committee. "You're putting a tree in a hostile environment. Our trees are dying because of where we're planting them."

People need to use long-term thinking when they're dealing with trees, Ryan said.

"You have to look at it 10, 20 or 30 years down the road."

It's better to plant trees that haven't grown very big than larger ones whose roots will suffer damage from transplanting.

"A big tree looks good when you plan it, but the smaller tree in the long run will beat the bigger trees you put in," Ryan said.

The crabapple and cherry trees on North Pleasant Street are not in good shape now, Ryan said. Two of them have weak crotches and are in danger of splitting.

Gray, who opposes the trees coming down at all, said the Select Board, at the very least, should make sure that town workers use "structured soil," specially engineered to allow the growth of tree roots under the sidewalks if work proceeds and new trees are planted.

Snow said the Shade Tree Committee has requested that structured soil be used in previous sidewalk construction, but it wasn't. The reason, Skeels said, was that the special soil wasn't available at the time.

From now on, the Select Board should insist that the work not go forward until the town has the structured soil in hand, said Vincent O'Connor, of Summer Street.

On Amity Street, Snow and Ryan favor planting trees that will grow larger on the library lawn and provide much more shade. "It's really going to help cool the library," Snow said.

O'Connor described an alternative scenario. Instead of uprooting the trees and eliminating the narrow green strip in front of the library now, as planned, O'Connor would have the town move the sidewalk closer to the library and expand the green strip in addition to planting trees on the lawn.

"The trees cannot be saved if you're doing this construction," Ryan said of the linden and two Norway maples on the green strip. In his business, the narrow green patches between sidewalks and streets are called "death strips," he added.

A date for the Select Board hearing on the trees hasn't been set yet.

Mary Carey can be reached at mcarey@gazettenet.com.