Ficus
Trees Landmark Status Waits One More Month |
By Anita Varghese
Staff Writer
December 11 -- The Landmarks Commission continued Monday’s
discussion on the historical significance of the Downtown ficus
trees until next month, after hearing testimony that the trees may
have socio-political value.
Over objections from the City Manager’s Office, which represents the
City of Santa Monica as property owner of the trees, commissioners granted community
activist Jerry Rubin and a group of environmentalists calling themselves the
Treesavers a continuance.
“We are requesting a very reasonable postponement so that we have time
to put our report together as grassroots activists,” Rubin said. “We
can’t just come in and research stuff because we are not a professional
organization like PCR.”
the City’s historic resources consultant, PCR Services Corporation, prepared
two landmarks assessment reports after Treesavers filed two separate applications
asking the commission to designate entire rows of ficus trees on Second Street
and Fourth Street as city landmarks.
Rubin and the Treesavers are working with an independent, volunteer historian
who is currently ill and members of the Santa Monica Historical Society, who
are currently in the midst of relocating their museum to the Main Library.
“This is a crucial and unprecedented issue,” Rubin said. “We
feel that we deserve time to adequately work with the community resources available
to us.”
Assistant City Manager Gordon Anderson said the City Manager’s Office
would have liked the commission to make a decision on Monday so that the City
Council could hear the issue at its meeting in mid-January.
The City received a $1.8 million federal transportation grant that may have
to be forfeited if the final project design were to be modified, City officials
said.
In August, the City Council voted to direct nearly $8.2 million in municipal
and grant funds toward the Second and Fourth Streets Pedestrian and Streetscape
Improvement Project, which is the third phase of the Downtown Urban Design Plan.
The project covers eight downtown blocks and involves planting new Ginkgo trees,
removing and relocating ficus trees, repairing sidewalks and curbs, installing
pedestrian lighting, enhancing mid-block crosswalks and making handicapped accessibility
improvements.
“We were optimistic the Landmarks Commission could make some recommendations
to the City Council tonight,” Anderson said.
“This commission cannot make an economic decision, but our reasons for
asking that a decision be made tonight lands squarely on economic reasons,”
he said. “We will run into significant financial issues associated with
a non action.”
Construction and renovation cannot begin until the landmarks status issue has
been resolved, and Anderson said federal officials are insisting the project
not be delayed.
“City staff, as well as the entire community, loves trees and this is
a hallmark of Santa Monica,” Anderson said. “With this project we
have reduced the scope and preserved as many trees as we can. Of more than 150
trees, 23 are determined to be structurally unstable and those we have to remove.”
Based on PCR reports, City staff recommended that commissioners not landmark
the trees, even though they are located in what is called the Central Business
District.
As part of the City’s Historic Resources Inventory survey, the Central
Business District was identified in 1983 as a potential historic district and
resurveyed on three separate occasions since the original identification.
“The period of significance for the district has been identified from
1875, starting with the construction date of the oldest building in the district,
to 1944, the date of the most recently constructed contributor to the potential
district,” said Roxanne Tanemori, an associate planner for the City.
“The subject trees were planted in 1965 and 1967, a timeframe outside
of the district’s period of significance and are therefore not contributors
to this potential historic district,” she said.
“The subject trees also have not been identified during previous survey
efforts as appearing to be individually eligible for local landmark designation.”
Passionate testimony from Treesavers and the public focused on the benefits
of mature ficus trees that create shade for pedestrians and enhance quality
of life in an environmentally conscious city.
Some people spoke of environmental and political gatherings underneath the
Second and Fourth Street tree canopies in the 1960s and of an unnamed group
of women whose activities in the area are unknown.
“As important as the environmental arguments are, we can’t make
the kinds of findings we need for landmarks designation based on environmental
issues,” said Nina Fresco, chair of the Landmarks Commission.
The City’s ordinance allows commissioners to make a landmarks designation
if findings match one or more of six criteria.
Commissioners felt they did not have enough information before them to make
a decision after people brought forth new information that indicated the ficus
trees may have some sort of significance in a socio-political context, which
is one of the six criteria.
“I would love to give the applicants more time to research the possibility
that the planting of these trees symbolize the beginning of an environmental
political movement decades ago,” Fresco said.
“I would also like to know more about the relationship between the tress
and a women’s group that one of the public speakers mentioned,”
she said. “Cultural connections that can be made with these
trees are something we need to know about.”
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