Buena Park Residents Need to Speak Up to Save Street Trees

Scarlet X’s have been painted on street trees in a large area of Buena Park. The markings are not the work of ordinary vandals. This particular vandalism has the blessing of the Buena Park City Council and many of its citizens, if we are to believe Mayor Donald Bone. All of the trees tagged are to be removed. Approximately 32 streets are affected, and over 284 mature trees are marked for destruction. It is not unreasonable to estimate the value of these trees in excess of $1 million. Buena Park officials have chosen the most extraordinary euphemism for their vandalism. They have labeled it “street rejuvenation”!

According to Mayor Bone, the city allocates funds for street improvement programs each year. Once every 14 years or so, an area comes up for rejuvenation, which includes the removal of street trees that, in the opinion of the Engineering Department, are diseased or are causing damage to the improvements, or may conceivably cause damage before the next scheduled rejuvenation program.

As I understand the program, a tree may be spared if a property owner requests that the city preserve it, or if the city determines that no liability is likely to be incurred by the city as a result of the tree’s presence. In preparation for the rejuvenation project, the city sent 245 questionnaires to property owners whose properties were adjacent to the street trees. Only 138 responses. Of these, 116 agreed with the removal of their trees, and only 22 property owners stated that they wished to preserve the tree or trees in front of their homes. The city assumes permission to remove trees has been granted from any property owner not responding in writing. Consequently, Buena Park’s engineering division has tagged nearly 300 mature trees for the destruction that has already begun.

The neighborhood in which I live is one of the city’s oldest. California pepper trees were the original street trees, and enough of these 50-year-old trees remain to add grace and beauty to our modest homes, and to provide shade for our wide streets. Despite the fact that our street has no sidewalk for two blocks, and that curb and gutter displacement is minimal, our trees are to be cut down.

The amount of money being spent to remove the trees would go a long way to repair or otherwise alleviate the damage the city is trying to prevent by the trees’ removal. Concrete can be replaced in a matter of hours; mature trees require decades. The city proposes to replace the existing trees with young ones only if requested by the homeowners. As a landscape architect, I know that the trees selected as replacements are, with only one or two exceptions, very small in stature even when mature, and markedly out of scale with the street-scape.

If the residents of Buena Park who are so agreeable, or at best apathetic, to the loss of their street trees were aware of the potential loss in real estate value, were aware of the increased expense to cool their homes, were aware of these trees as nature’s most efficient air purifiers, I wonder if they would see it as vandalism of the worst sort. Perhaps they would protest the damage to the authorities before it is too late. I can only hope that some residents will be motivated to call the city and insist on the preservation of their trees.

LYNN THOMAS

Buena Park