Summer's Over
By Frank Gruber
The summer slowdown has ended -- it was
a busy week at both the City Council and
the Planning Commission.
Although I've written 356 columns about
Santa Monica, there are plenty of issues
in this always percolating little pot
of a city that I've never touched. One
is the controversy over the replacement
of aging ficus trees on Second and Fourth
Streets downtown.
Maybe my silence is surprising. My office
is in the old Central Tower Building on
Fourth, and I walk on the street, and
under the spreading ficus trees, every
working day.
Also, when I was on the Planning Commission
ten years ago, I served on the Downtown
Design Working Group. Although the current
plans for Second and Fourth were developed
after my time, I was involved in the prior
phases of the downtown redesign which
established the parameters.
It's possible I've been controversy-adverse.
A friend with an office down the hall
from me is passionate about saving the
trees and, let's face it, it's hard to
argue against living, transpiring trees.
But I'll give the City Council, City
Staff, and the all the people who showed
up at the meetings from which the replacement
plan emerged my belated support. The final
plan, to remove 54 trees, about one-third
of the total, and replace them with 139
new trees, is a good one.
Thirty-one of the 54 -- those that are
healthy -- will be transplanted elsewhere.
According to the City's Community Forester,
Walt Warriner, the City has had extremely
good results transplanting trees like
these -- typically a 95 percent success
rate.
As I said, I walk nearly every day on
Fourth Street -- but because of the dense
ficus trees, it's gloomy. If I can, I
walk on the sunnier and airier Promenade.
The evergreen ficus trees, which never
change with the season, and which are
too solid even to rustle in a breeze,
turn the sidewalks into tunnels. The deciduous
trees the City planted on Santa Monica
Boulevard and Broadway a few years ago
are much better, and they're but youngsters
The ficus are getting old -- they are
more than 40 years old, and they are expected
to have life spans of only ten or 20 more
years. They have been weakened by root-pruning.
This is a minor concern, as there have
been numerous incidents in the city of
old trees dropping limbs or even falling
over.
Now is the time to begin their staged
replacement. As Walt Warriner testified
at City Council last week, instead of
doing something anti-environmental, as
the plan's critics have charged, the plan
was a good example of "progressive
urban forest management."
So far every phase of the downtown redesign,
starting with the Promenade, continuing
through getting rid of the one-way streets
and then widening the sidewalks on Santa
Monica and Broadway, and building the
transit mall, has had its doubters. Disaster
has been predicted at every phase. Yet
each change has turned out to be an improvement
-- downtown is a more attractive environment
than ever.
No one likes to see a tree cut down.
The only recompense is to plant new trees
-- a gift we can give to the next couple
of generations.
* * *
I found a sad parallel between the controversy
about the ficus trees and the issue that
came before the Planning Commission last
week about the redevelopment of the mobile
home park on Colorado near Stanford. (see
story)
The parallel is this: just as everyone
knows that city street trees will not
stand forever, neither will mobile homes.
There are some things that by their natures
are not permanent.
But change is not easy, especially on
those who don't have the financial wherewithal
to have a lot of options when it comes
to housing.
In evaluating the downtown trees, the
City determined that 31 of those that
the City wanted to remove are healthy
enough to transplant, and at a significant
cost, the City will transplant these trees.
It seems like we should be at least as
solicitous to the needs of displaced residents
as we are of displaced trees, and it's
good to note that finding new homes for
existing mobile home residents was the
issue that the Planning Commission focused
on last week.
* * *
Speaking of the Planning Commission,
the City Council made two strong appointments
to the commission last week. I don't know
either Gleam Davis or Jim Reis personally,
although I interviewed Ms. Davis when
she ran for City Council, but they both
seem to have the right skills and temperaments
to be good commissioners. (see
story)
In fact, their skills aren't that different
from those of the two commissioners they
replaced, Barbara Brown and Darrell Clarke.
Both Ms. Davis and Ms. Brown are lawyers,
and both Mr. Reis and Mr. Clarke have
strong backgrounds in planning and interests
in sustainable development. Time will
tell whether they have the same or different
perspectives on development and growth.
Listening to the City Council make a
string of appointments to boards and commissions
last week, as always it was heartening
to be able to reflect on the high quality
of the volunteers who are attracted to
public service in Santa Monica.
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