“It is my homage to our beautiful trees that we may lose,” she said.
The Parvis home sits on one of the 11 blocks slated for street reconstruction this summer.
As the city continues with its decade-long project to reconstruct all 5.2 miles of downtown streets, many mature front yard trees and boulevard trees have paid the price — often being removed and replaced with much smaller, younger trees. City Engineer Bill Monk has said that the street reconstruction project will essentially result in the reforestation of downtown.
It has been a tough pill for residents to swallow.
Two summers ago, when his neighborhood was slated for street reconstruction, Jerry Bielke went door-to-door throughout the downtown collecting signatures in the hopes of saving the trees.
“It’s personal,” he said. “You grow up with them. The trees become a part of your life.”
Trees attracted Parvis to her downtown home. “The trees were one of the reasons we moved,” she said.
The potential loss of the trees that line the boulevard outside her home is “devastating” to Parvis. “Our house is almost 100 years old,” she said. “We depend on the trees to provide us with shade. We don’t have air conditioning and we can’t afford air conditioning.”
Over the last couple of years, outspoken residents have convinced the city to change their tune a bit when it comes to tree removal.
“Last year we took a new turn or a little bit of a twist in the way that we handle trees,” Monk told the Chaska City Council on Feb. 3.
“We still have trees that need to come down because of utility conflicts, or because they’re diseased or deteriorated to the point they are safety issues,” he continued.
“The intent is to leave as many full-grown trees that are healthy as possible,” said Monk, noting that would include ash trees, despite threats of the emerald ash borer.
Monk said residents seemed supportive of that approach during last year’s project. “As you drive through, there are large trees on every block,” he said. “It does help to lessen the impact.”
“We will use that same approach this year,” he added.
CHANGES
Steve Hermann was part of the neighborhood that asked the City Council to make some changes to last year’s project — including the removal of a planned bike trail and saving more trees.
Hermann said the city did listen. “We got the bike path taken away and we got to keep some trees,” he said. “From my perspective, we made out like bandits.”
That being said, Hermann acknowledges that post-street reconstruction, “the neighborhood looks pretty bare.”
“I don’t think they were consistent with their judgement [on which trees had to go],” he added.
Parvis watched the block to the south of her undergo reconstruction two summers ago. She said the day the trees were removed it “looked like a tornado went through.”
“It’s devastating,” she added, noting that she has read about methods other cities have used to work around trees and minimize loss. “Trees add to property value,” she said.
Hermann issued a challenge to the city to up the number of trees saved. “If it was 20 percent last year, I’d like to see 30 percent or 50 percent this year,” he said.
“I would think they could do better,” he said. “Even better than last year.”
Bielke said he’s “kinda glad” the city is still trying to save trees, but he agrees with Hermann that they “could do better.”
Bielke would like to see the city cater more to the residents being affected through the street reconstruction process. “It should be treated as a remodel or a renovation,” he said, advocating for a more individual approach to each situation. “It’s their homes.”
For those unhappy with various aspects of the plans for street reconstruction, both Bielke and Hermann recommend bringing concerns to the City Council.
“You can only say what you feel and hope they listen,” said Bielke.
“Don’t go in with a mob mentality,” said Hermann. “We went in with options and they seemed to respond well to that.”
Source: http://www.chaskaherald.com
No comments:
Post a Comment