Yale Street Trees Get Reprieve from Ax

By Oliver Lukacs
Staff Writer

Sept. 9 -- The Ficus trees that have shaded Yale Street for half a century will stand for at least another six months, after nearly 100 residents staunchly opposed the City's plan to chop down and replace the 29 trees whose roots are ripping up the streets and sidewalks.

City officials contend that the trees between Wilshire Boulevard and Montana Avenue pose a public safety hazard and accelerate street erosion. They must be replaced in order to resurface the streets and repair the sidewalks, which are among the most damaged in Santa Monica, officials said.

At the root of the problem for the Yale Street residents -- who have grown accustomed to the cool air and shade the broccoli-shaped canopies provide -- is that removing so many trees at once in such a small area would “decimate” the quality of life and reduce property values. The new trees, they argue, would take decades to canopy the street.

“As you can tell from the crowd gathered here tonight, the plan you propose is simply not acceptable to the people on the block and the rest of the community,” said Jennifer Krieger, a Yale Street resident and former City of Los Angeles employee.

Krieger didn’t understand the urgency of chopping down the trees, which mature at 60 feet in height with a 60-foot-wide canopy.

“This is not a condition (on the streets) that came to light yesterday," she said. "The truth is you guys dropped this on us with three week's notice that our trees are being yanked, and that’s not the way to get community buy-in.”

“What upset us most,” said Pat Jakle, also a Yale St. resident, “is the extreme number of trees that are going to be removed at one time.” Jakle said her street would be losing 20 of the 43 trees between Washington and Montana Avenues. “That’s almost 50 percent of our tree canopy,” she said.

Jakle was also baffled by the urgency. “You keep talking about streets and sidewalks, streets and sidewalks, and how it’s important for us to have quality streets and sidewalks, but what we’re trying to hold onto for our neighborhood is quality of life. So we are looking at the big picture. We’re asking for time. I don’t understand your urgency either.”

While “there is no specific deadline,” there are liability and maintenance issues that need to be addressed as soon as possible, said Craig Perkins, director of the City’s environmental and public works management.

“There is no specific deadline, but we have identified that this is one of the worst streets in town, in term of its condition, so therefore it’s our job to fix it, and that’s what were proposing to do," Perkins told the crowd. "We need to fix the street and we need to fix the sidewalk.”

To postpone the maintenance project is “not reasonable,” Perkins said. “If an accident occurs, that’s my liability. That’s going to be my responsibility to pay for out of my budget. That’s the reality.”

Perkins told the Lookout after the meeting that roughly five to ten trip-and-fall lawsuits are filed against the City every month, which lead to settlements as high as $250,000. While there are usually only a dozen settlements per year, Perkins said, once the City identifies a street as a public safety hazard, it becomes a bigger legal liability.

The settlement money is paid out by the City’s insurance company, Perkins said, but that insurance is paid for by an interdepartmental pool, and his department’s premium in the pool goes up with every successful trip-and-fall suit.

The fact that the trees, which were planted in 1955, are nearing the end of their life expectancy of 60 years, also makes the issue time-sensitive, according to Walt Warriner, the City’s community forester.

Just trimming the roots is also not an option for many of the trees, because as the trees get older, they become more susceptible to the damage inflicted by root pruning, Warriner said.

“The thing about tree roots and root removal and the decay inside of trees is that we don’t always see it happening until the tree falls over and we all stand around going, ‘Gosh it’s all rotten inside. I wonder why,'” said Warriner. He added that only three Ficus trees have fallen since 1997.

“When you take out all the roots and you have a massive canopy -- think about a wine glass on your table and you take away the base of your wine glass, when you set it on the table it’ll balance perfectly until something comes along, bumps that table and it falls over.

“All it takes to bump the tree is two inches of rainfall followed by wind the next day and we have trees falling all over, or an earthquake. In the interest of public safety we have to replace the trees.”

Some residents suggested expanding the parkway where the trees sit to allow further growth, which would save the trees and address a second concern -- slowing the traffic on a street that has become a “speedway” because of its width.

But City officials countered that expanding the parkway would transform a regular maintenance project into a capital improvement project estimated to cost roughly $1.1 million, money the cash-strapped City doesn't have.

“From the neighborhood-traffic-green-eye-shade-only-looking-at-my-perspective-point-of-view there are other things to do that are cheaper, or there may be places that are worse,” said Lucy Dyke, who is in charge of traffic for the City.

“I don’t know of a case (of a neighborhood asking for narrower streets) where that’s been found to be a feasible, reasonable alternative that the City has paid for anywhere,” Dyke said.

Perkins concurred. “I wish we were in an environment where we could do all these great projects. Unfortunately there is no money to be programmed. There has not been and there is no money in the foreseeable future to do that,” said Perkins, adding that he is looking at possibly having to eliminate 30 positions from his department next year.

To put things in perspective, Perkins said there are already two similar projects that have been delayed for years due to budget constraints.

But residents argued that it is better to defer the reforesting, and hold out for a better solution. Perkins countered that there are no other solutions and that postponing the project would only raise the current price tag from $320,000 to $380,000.

“That doesn’t hold,” said Don Schurt. “If we make a mistake today people are going to be living with that for a tremendously long period of time. If we make one mistake that reduces the property value between Washington and Montana on the order of what a real estate person said would be $200,000 a house, that’s a liability of $5 million.”

“Maybe I’m hammering this too hard,” said Perkins, “but what is really important is that we don’t have false expectations as to what resources are out there and what’s possible. I am telling you it doesn’t look good.”

In the end, City officials agreed to postpone the project for six months, allowing enough time for residents to form a representative working group to collaboratively explore all avenues with the City. The ad hoc group is expected to hold its first meeting within the next two weeks.

“Sit down with us like a City that cares about its residents and gives us an opportunity to explore with you” every possible option, said Krieger, igniting applause. “I really want to feel like we beat this horse dead” before giving up.