Where the arbor argument grows

Alicia Robinson

When Mary Singleton looks out her window at an old oak tree, its

spreading canopy reminds her why she moved to her Corona del Mar

neighborhood.

But when Tom Goble, Singleton’s neighbor on Larkspur Avenue, looks

at the same tree, he sees a needle-shedding nuisance that should be

removed.

A dispute about six city-owned trees has uprooted the

once-friendly relations between neighbors here. The problem started

when several homeowners petitioned the city of Newport Beach to

remove six river she-oaks, which grow about 70 feet high and can

spread from 20 to 40 feet across.

The trees in question are in the parkway -- the city-owned land

between the sidewalk and the street -- where homeowners can ask for

replacement of trees that are dying or that have caused damage to

sidewalks or underground utilities.

The city has spent more than $12,000 over the past few years

repairing sidewalks because of the Larkspur Avenue oaks, city General

Services Director Dave Niederhaus said.

The she-oaks are messy, dropping needle-like twigs into car

grilles and on freshly groomed lawns, said Goble, who is one of the

petitioners. Since the trees on the other side of the street were

replaced in 2001 with firewheel trees, it makes sense to change the

rest now so they’ll be roughly the same height, he said.

“We’re simply asking for the trees that have already been planted

on the opposite side of the street from us so it brings symmetry and

continuity,” Goble said. “It’s really quite confusing to us that this

project has been forwarded by the city -- we’re paying for it, and

we’re not being able to have any say in what sort of trees are

adjacent to our property.”

But the trees give a character to the neighborhood that the

smaller firewheel trees never will, other Larkspur residents argue.

They also provide shade and keep the street from looking like a

collection of boxy houses.

“Our position is that we specifically bought a house on this

street because it had these nice old trees,” said Singleton, who’s

helping lead a charge to save the she-oaks.

“We believe in property rights and all that, but we also believe

they [the trees] should be trimmed first and see if that doesn’t

solve the majority of the problem,” Singleton said. “Because once you

cut down a tree like that, they’re gone.”

In fact, Singleton and her husband Bill don’t think the city

properly followed its own procedures when it first considered

removing the trees. They say the trees weren’t trimmed according to

the three-year schedule and the petition to remove them didn’t have

enough valid signatures.

The Singletons and other tree supporters raised enough questions

to get the city’s Parks, Beaches and Recreation Commission to agree

to revisit the issue at an April meeting.

Trees seem to get people riled up in Newport, and parks commission

member Debra Allen can attest to it. As chairwoman of the

commission’s tree subcommittee, Allen sat through 18 public hearings

on amendments to the city’s tree policy in 2004. But the Larkspur

complaints are the first she’s heard since the policy was revised,

she said.

“If the neighborhood is divided -- and this is the worst case I’ve

ever seen -- then the commission’s going to have to decide what’s in

the best interests of the city,” Allen said. “This is a very unusual

situation.”

One piece of commonly lobbed ammunition in the tree battle is that

for neighborhoods with no ocean view, the trees are the view. Betty

Butterworth, who spoke in favor of keeping the she-oaks at a November

parks commission meeting, is still upset about the removal of trees

from her Jasmine Avenue neighborhood about 15 years ago. The city’s

procedures for saving trees are elaborate and hard to follow, she

said.

“They just put a lot of stumbling blocks in our way and they want

to keep the power on their side,” Butterworth said.

Residents could request the she-oaks be protected as a “special

tree” -- the tree committee will meet today to discuss the special

tree list -- but Allen thinks it’s unlikely they’d be approved

because they probably won’t meet the criteria.

The Singletons don’t consider themselves tree huggers, so this

isn’t a fight they expected to get in.

It has divided the neighborhood, Goble said, but he’s prepared to

accept whatever the commission decides.

“If the majority of the people think it’s better to have two

different kinds of trees on the different sides of the street, then

there’s nothing we can do,” Goble said.

* ALICIA ROBINSON covers government and politics. She may be

reached at (714) 966-4626 or by e-mail at alicia.robinson

@latimes.com.