Unusual
Landmark Applications Filed
for Ficus Trees |
By Jorge Casuso
October 18 -- The Downtown
ficus trees that have been the center
of a swirling controversy will likely
stay put for the rest of the year
after two applications were filed
Tuesday to have them declared City
landmarks.
The applications are yet another spike in the
City’s plan to begin composting or relocating
75 mature ficus and palm trees as part of an $8.2
million streetscape plan for 2nd and 4th streets,
which flank the popular Third Street Promenade.
Unlike applications filed in the past to landmark
individual trees, those filed by Treesavers seek
to declare the entire rows of trees along each
of the two streets as landmarks, making them perhaps
the first applications of their kind in the city.
“The City has designated individual trees
and designated Palisades Park as a landmark,”
said Thomas Nitti, an attorney who represents
the effort to save the trees.
“It would seem to me it’s not much
of a stretch to designate a particular group of
trees in a particular neighborhood,” Nitti
said.
To be designated a landmark, the trees must be
an “established and familiar visual feature
of the neighborhood,” according to the City’s
landmarks ordinance. “They must also possess
a “singular physical characteristic.”
Nitti believes the trees’ wide canopies
shading the streets in the heart of Downtown meet
those criteria.
The applications will come before the landmarks
Commission in November or December, planning officials
said.
“The ordinance requires that an application
be brought forward within 65 days,” said
Roxanne Tanemori, an associate planner who works
with the landmarks Commission.
“No calendar date has been set,”
Tanemori said. “This is a new type of question.
. . We need the time to do the analysis.”
Activist Jerry Rubin and Treesavers, had submitted
a landmark application on October 5, but the City
stamped the application as “lodged,”
rather than “filed,” pending an evaluation
of whether a single or multiple applications needed
to be filed.
Tuesday’s filing comes less than two weeks
after a Superior Court judge issued a restraining
order barring the City from removing any trees
along 2nd and 4th that don’t pose a danger
to the public.
City officials have said they would abide by
the order until a hearing on the issue is held
October 26.
City officials contend that the ficus, which
are more than 40 years old and expected to only
last another 10 to 20 years, have been weakened
by root-pruning, which can cause the trees to
drop limbs or even fall over.
Critics have called the plan to remove 54 ficus
trees and 21 palms, and install 139 new Ginkgo
trees along the two streets unnecessary and anti-environmental.
The Planning Commission has urged the City Council
to revisit the project, which also calls for adding
decorative up-lighting to the remaining ficus
trees, repairing sidewalks or curbs damaged by
the trees, enlarging tree wells and installing
new pedestrian lighting.
In addition, the plan calls for enhancing the
six mid-block crosswalks on 2nd and
4th streets.
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