Losing Our Trees

Heritage Trees in Downtown Austin  (Cesar Chavez & San Antonio)

Recently, I joined a collective effort to Save the Heritage Trees in the Heart of Austin, Texas.

Their Facebook page states the following:

"STOP property developer Trammell Crow from cutting down our heritage trees in the heart of downtown Austin, [at the corner of] Cesar Chavez and San Antonio. Sign our petition at http://www.change.org/petitions/we-the-people-vote-for-trees

On Thursday May 24, 2012 Austin City Council voted for big business. City Council voted 7 to 0 allowing a waiver to the Heritage Tree Ordinance so that the property developer Trammell Crow could remove seven heritage trees from the development site at the Green Water Treatment Plant in the very heart of downtown Austin, TX.

These seven heritage trees (six live oaks and one 33" caliper pecan tree) are next to the sidewalks and can easily be saved by incorporating them into the design of the landscape. The trees are within a stones throw of Austin City Hall and the Margret Hofmann oaks on Cesar Chavez.

We are committed to following in the footsteps of Austin's Tree Lady, Margret Hofmann, who fought for the heritage tree ordinance as a council member in the 1970's. She was a pioneer in her dedication to trees, and her tireless efforts contributed enormously to the beautiful green city we enjoy today."

I was inspired to cover this story for the Austin Post, in an articled called "City Ignores Its Own Heritage Tree Ordinance: Sets Bad Precedent," exploring some of the deeper issues, as well as similar cases that have happened in the past. Zoila Vega-Marchena, Ph.D. was gracious enough to gather a great deal of information on behalf of Michael Fossum, Executive Director of the Austin Heritage Tree Foundation. I included excerpts in my article, but I wanted to include the entire information somewhere on the internet, for others to see.

A quote from the Austin Heritage Tree Foundation on the importance of saving the trees for Austin's well being:

"The Austin Heritage Tree Foundation supports the “save the trees” petition, but we are not officially involved. We strongly oppose the removal of these trees, and we believe that some of these trees can be accommodated into the design, and the remaining trees can be transplanted. We ask for Trammell Crow to realize how important these trees are to the community and to actively work with the City Arborist, the City of Austin, and the community to save all of these heritage trees and the protected tree left on site.

Only about 5% of all of the trees in Austin are heritage trees, but a healthy distribution is 10%. This is the result of decades of trading and sacrificing heritage trees to save smaller trees on the development site, and the result of removing healthy heritage trees and mitigating by planting new young trees.

Heritage trees are the workhorses of the urban forest. On average, it takes about 75 years for a live oak to reach 24 inches in diameter, and 130 years to reach 30 inches in diameter. These numbers are typical of other tree species and are not particular to slow growing live oaks. It’s hard to grow heritage trees nowadays because of current climate conditions, inferior nursery trees stock, poor soils and low soil volume. Soil is a critical factor.

A heritage tree is special not only because of the tree, but because of the soil it is growing in. That soil is good to promote growth. Removing heritage trees and placing development on that area robs us of the last pieces of good soil left. New trees are planted in compacted soils in parks that see high human traffic. New trees are also planted in sidewalks and are given very insufficient soil volume.

On average, the former Urban Forestry manager estimated that trees on downtown sidewalks die in 10 years, and in 15 years anywhere else, partially due to the harsher conditions by the street (heat from the asphalt), but mainly to outgrowing their small soil volume allocated for the roots. There are techniques that can be used to improve this, but Austin doesn’t use them.

But street trees will never grow to be heritage trees. Street trees are disposable decorative trees. Texas has lost 10% of its trees due to the drought. Many of those were heritage trees. Austin can’t afford to lose anymore heritage trees.

The Heritage Tree Ordinance has saved thousands of heritage trees since it was approved in February 2009. The City of Austin has required more than 3,000 applicants to abide by its rules, and all of these applicants, without a single exception [up until the Trammell Crow development case] have never been given a variance to remove a heritage tree. They have all designed around the trees to save them on site. That is a 100% success rate. Only 5 cases have gone to the public process. Out of those 5 cases, only 1 was an actual case of requesting a variance. 2 of the 4 cases were trees that were not in good shape, one case was retracted, and the last one was a retroactive case because the developer damaged the roots of the trees.

The one public case was the 2011 Bowie St. case, Perry Lorenz’s Land and Endeavour development. The Planning Commission asked the developer to submit proof that they had tried to design around the tree and couldn’t (a requirement of the Heritage Tree Ordinance). The developer showed a design that saved the tree on site. The issue was the garage footprint, and saving he tree caused the design to require an additional parking level for their multilevel garage, something that the developer didn’t want to do.

The development surpassed by magnitudes the number of parking spaces required by the City, even more since the developer had obtained CURE that allow him to have 60% of the City parking requirements, in exchange for some voluntary affordable housing or open green spaces, which the developer refused to give.

Finally, the developer choose to transplant the tree on site, from the location with the rich soil that promoted that heritage growth to a spot in the lot near the creek, next to the garage. A new home for the tree, maybe not as good a home as its previous home, but the tree will still be alive if taken care of. The City Arborist approves the transplanting plans and requires 5 years of irrigation. Survival rate is estimated to be high by some provided that good care is provided, but there is no actual scientific data to substantiate any survival rate at all. But, at least, the heritage tree was not removed."

CASES OF MASSIVE TREE REMOVAL BY AUSTIN DEVELOPERS:

1. 2012: Green, a Perry Lorenz’ and Trammell Crow development. 6 heritage trees and 1 protected tree. Perry Lorenz and Trammell Crow development. TC is directed, but NOT required to work with City Arborist. The community would like to see the design alternatives considered by Trammell Crow, but the ESGRO is not releasing any information because they are determining is it is public.


2. 2007: Grayco development at Lakeshore and Arena, a PUD. City of Austin staff approved the site plans in 2007. City Council attached a covenant in 2007 to protect all of the heritage trees at Lakeshore that were historical because they were donated by LCRA a few decades earlier. There was some stipulation in the covenant that a couple of the trees were going to be removed and that other trees could be removed under some specific situations. [Austin Heritage Tree Foundation hasn't] been able to find the covenant yet. The buildings were demolished years ago, but due to the down turn in the economy, there was no new development until 2012. The case was grandfathered since the site plans were approved before the Heritage Tree Ordinance was approved.
   
   However, Austin has had a Protected Tree Ordinance since the 1970s, and when the 2007 deal was done, all of the trees in the 4 blocks were approved to be removed with only 10% more mitigation than required by code. The developer promised to provide green spaces and environmentally sensitive. A few weeks ago, without the public knowing, 3 of the LCRA historical heritage trees were removed and 2 were transplanted. They were in the way of the new driveways of the new development. Most of the trees in the 4 blocks were removed or are being removed. These magnificent healthy and large trees (some of then heritage trees) are being removed and piled up on the site. Many are still standing, to be removed later, but are being hit by machinery and their roots are exposed by the dozers passing by. It;'s pure tree torture an if trees were rocks, and not living organisms. Over 100 trees were removed from the site, only a few trees were saved. The mitigation was minimum.
   
   Most developments were like the Grayco one before the Heritage Tree Ordinance was approved. It’s easier to take down all of the trees and regrade the lot, and plant new little trees later. But the soil is compacted and the soil volume allocated not enough. Developers try to pile as many young trees as possible because its’ cheaper to mitigate by planting caliper inches than paying the mitigation fee, so the trees get planted too close to even grow past 15 years.
   
   
3. 2008: A good example is Pecan grove at Barton Springs Rd., now the Lofts. Another Perry Lorenz development. Marcia Ball advocated against the lofts and the java coffee shop because of the excessive amount of trees removed. Many arborists evaluated the old pecan trees and assessed most of them to be healthy, but one arborist didn’t, and with that bad arborist report, the City arborist granted the tree removal permits due to poor health and safety issues. There were negotiations back and forth, there was the commitment from the developer to transplant 5 trees, then a storm blew the top of those trees, and the developer never transplanted anything. The centerpiece pecan tree in the courtyard is declining. www.atwhatcostthemovie.com

FUTURE CASES: The electric plant redevelopment and the Seaholm redevelopment, both Perry Lorenz projects. The many trees that will be removed to put the trail in Shoal Creek at 5th St. (all trees and all vegetation will be removed to put walls and gabions instead of leaving the creek banks, under the excuse of reducing flooding and erosion, not really needed since trees hold the soil in place and there is only erosion in a few spots).