Trees Are Fundamental to Shoreline's Character

Trees are front and center again in Shoreline. 

"To Tree or not to Tree, that is the question!" 

(apologies to William Shakespear!)

Trees that are now gone
 from Bear Reserve, part of Innis Arden
7/11 - ph credit Janet Way

At Monday's City Council meeting the Trees and Tree Board topic will be on the agenda. Council will take up Ordinances #617 and #627 which address respectively:  creating a Tree Board and Tree Cutting Permits for the Right of Way. 


The agenda link is here. Councilmeetings begin at 7pm, and public comment on this item will be at the beginning, but the discussion and potential vote will begin after about 7:45pm. You can contact the Council directly at:
http://www.shorelinewa.gov/index.aspx?recordid=10&page=36
or City Manager's office: 801-2213
http://www.shorelinewa.gov/index.aspx?recordid=11&page=648

Citizens who care about protecting our trees have been contacting the Council for years about these concerns and recently have taken other actions.

The Shoreline Preservation Society, a local non-profit organization is raising many concerns about these proposals and the potential impacts to our environment, health and character of the community. 
SPS (Shoreline Preservation Society) is now sponsoring an online petition, through The Petition Site/Care2, asking the community to support the protection of our trees through and independent, stand-alone tree board, not just creating a board ordinance that facilitates cutting more trees and benefits one neighborhood's "views".  


The petition has garnered over 230 signatures in just 5 days. You're invited to sign at:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/protect-shorelines-urban-forest/


In Shoreline, tree preservation has been a continuing controversy for many years, and is fundamental to the community's image, quality of life and central to the political identity of different neighborhoods and factions.

Some magnificent London Plane Trees grace
Meridian Ave N, and provide shade and a beautiful
"tunnel of green"
ph credit, Janet Way

Some of the major concerns about these ordinances are:

• Need for SEPA Review to assess the actual environmental impacts of this ordinance 

• Tree Board needs to be an "independent, stand-alone" body, not just the Parks Board 

• Accompanying "Street Tree List" to the ordinance does not contain conifers, native trees or most of the existing street trees, when our current streetsides now are made up of over 40% conifers. 

• Permit process is designed to benefit one neighborhood, Innis Arden to facilitate cutting for views

Major Concern:
So, if all the trees that are now in the "Right-of-Way" (existing Street Trees) are not on the "approved list" in the proposed ordinance, they are all vulnerable to cutting, with just a simple permit.

Many of us are still asking are we Shoreline, Innis Arden or Shorelinnisarden? 

Thousands of beautiful trees are at stake in Shoreline and the Council has a responsibility to consider the legacy we leave for the future in our City.

Conifer in Right of Way in Innis Arden

Are We Shoreline, Innis Arden or Shorelinnisarden?

A local resident with very deep roots here has christened us "Shorelinnisarden" and designed us a new logo for the City of Shorelinnisarden! 

This inspired perhaps by a disturbing trend here. It seems we may be all forced to march to the Innis Arden Board Rules, if we are not careful. The upcoming discussions at the council to make Shoreline a "Tree City, USA" by instituting a tree cutting policy to suit the Innis Arden Board, will be something to pay attention to.


Maybe we already are?



Shoreline City Council is scheduled to take up the matter soon. But many are asking, really what would be the environmental impact of this proposal. Many are asking for a SEPA Review, to better understand what the impact would be. If you establish a Tree Board, with a pre-existing "Tree Management Plan" already in place, and a "Recommended Tree List" already established, how would this impact our whole Urban Forest Canopy? Especially if there are no conifers and most of the existing street trees not on the list?
Is it really better to have a Tree Board and a Tree City USA status, when having that moniker would really mean the Urban Forest would be diminished? Really?

Scene at Innis Arden's Bear Reserve where 46 significant trees
have been cut to please the "view conscious"

If so ................ All hail "Shorelinnisarden!" $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Bear Reserve - Innis Arden Board Taking Aim at 46 Trees in Critical Area

Hearing is scheduled for Thurs, Aug 25th with Shoreline Hearing Examiner. 


The Friends of Bear Reserve are advocating to save the trees that are threatened.

Bear Reserve has many huge trees
that are 50-75 years old

What does the future hold for Innis Arden’s Bear Reserve

The Innis Arden Club has requested to removal of 46 mature trees in the Bear Reserve for the benefit of five home owners.  The City of Shoreline had “mitigated” the removal, limiting it to sixteen trees due the steep slope in the reserve.  The Innis Arden Club has appealed the mitigation to the Hearing Examiner. 

The Hearing to determine the fate of Bear Reserve is scheduled for Thursday and Friday, August 25th and 26^th at Shoreline City Hall.  If the Innis Arden Club prevails then not only will Bear Reserve lose 46 mature trees, but home owners below the Reserve will also lose trees based on the Innis Arden covenant. 

It is estimated that in addition to the 46 trees the Club has proposed removing there are another 39 “significant” sized privately owned trees in Innis Arden, plus 5 in Grouse Reserve that will likely be removed. 

The City of Shoreline defines a tree as “significant” when a conifer is 8 inches in diameter at breast height (dbh) or 4’2.”  Deciduous and broad leaf evergreens like our native madronas are considered significant when they reach 12” dbh. 

No matter what the Hearing Examiner decides, any part of Bear Reserve that in not protected as “critical area” due to steep slope an/or stream conditions is at risk of losing 6 more significant trees every 36 months on each of the two parcels making up the reserve until the Innis Arden Club is satisfied.

Find out more at:

http://shorelinewa.gov/index.aspx?page=25&recordid=3855

By Boni Biery 

Bear Reserve Tree - a valuable
natural resource

Bear Reserve - A Place That Matters

The "Tuning Fork Tree" stands proudly in the
Bear Reserve
ph credit - Janet Way

Huge Doug Fir Tree at Risk in Bear Reserve
ph credit - Janet Way

A Grove of Significant Trees in Shoreline that many neighbors care about is at risk from a proposal by Innis Arden Board's plans.

Trees in a Steep Slope Critical Area Proposed to be Cut
ph credit - Janet Way

The Reserve contains a bonafide Critical Area, according to the City of Shoreline. The IA Board proposes to cut 45 trees in this unusually forested area in Innis Arden. They claim since they are the owners that they can cut whatever they want to enhance views of nearby property owners.

Critical Areas or ECA's are places that are protected by cities and counties by their Critical Area Ordinances. Steep Slopes, Streams, Wetlands and other types of resources like flood plains are protected by City Ordinance and State Law.

However, other neighbors want to keep the trees because of the exceptional benefits they find in this grove of big trees. 

Bear Reserve is a popular walking path
for Innis Arden and nearby residents, just below
the site of the old Sunset Elementary School.
Children used to walk to school along this path.
ph credit - Janet Way

Some trees were already cut in the last few years there.  The Innis Arden Board is arguing that it is not a Critical Area. An appeal hearing is scheduled with the Hearing Examiner  in August. 

Curving Trunks indicate trees protecting a steep slope

There is also a small creek that was flowing there last week (in July). It seems to be hardly an "ephemeral stream" as claimed by the IA Board if it is flowing in July. 

Small stream flowing in Bear Reserve surfaces in the upper section of the ravine.

The trees proposed to be cut are "significant" by the current city rules because they are much larger than the 12" measurement. 

Alan Kohn is a retired UW Professor of Biology
who lives next to the reserve and is a member of
the Friends of Bear Reserve group.
ph credit - Janet Way

The trees offer a respite and valuable wildlife habitat to many species. While there we witnessed hummingbirds and insects flitting about.

Red Elderberry Grove in the Reserve
ph credit - Janet Way

What will be the fate of the trees in Innis Arden, and the City of Shoreline? That will be up to the City, the Hearing Examiner and the citizens who care.

Seattle PI Story on Innis Arden Tree Debate AGAIN!

So, the Tree vs Views debate is happening again in Innis Arden. 
The Innis Arden Board and a few of their members, are determined to cut any tree, any time they want, regardless of the impact to others or the environment.  Now they want to cut a significant number of trees in the Bear Reserve. Other neighbors want to preserve them.


Shoreline and citizens have been working on these tree issues for many years.  This is just the latest in the skirmishes.  Many citizens would like to see a comprehensive tree ordinance like Lake Forest Park has passed. Th value of trees is undeniable, but the argument over how to protect them, and whether to work towards a better "urban forest canopy" is still being argued.


Now the Innis Arden Board has taken the city into litigation again over it. The latest hearing with the Hearing Examiner was postponed till August.

The Seattle PI, has a story yesterday laying out some of the issues.

Tree fight: Dispute pits Shoreline versus neighborhood

By LARRY LANGE, SPECIAL TO SEATTLEPI.COM

Updated 09:55 a.m., Monday, June 20, 2011

Read more: http://www.seattlepi.com/local/article/Tree-fight-Dispute-pits-Shoreline-versus-1429428.php#ixzz1Q1TjtFe6

Shoreline's prime-view neighborhood, Innis Arden, is fighting over trees again.

It's not surprising that the area, perched on a green slope overlooking Puget Sound, could become as conflicted about its trees as it is defined by them.

Within Innis Arden are 11 different "reserves" of trees set aside when the late William Boeing platted and began developing the area. Today homes seem wrapped in a giant quilt of green in the leafiest of leafy enclaves.

But trees have grown tall, shrouding views, residents want trees cut out of the way and another battle has begun. This time, it's between most of the neighborhood and the City of  Shoreline.

Last year the Innis Arden Club, the group to which neighboring property owners belong, decided it was time to cut 46 tree in the Bear Reserve, a grove of trees off Ridgefield Road filled with evergreens and maples, some towering 60 feet high. Neighborhood homeowners also jointly own the reserves.

The effort began, according to some residents, after half a dozen neighbors complained that the trees were blocking their views of the sound and the Olympic Mountains, a benefit the club has sworn to preserve as part of covenants on members' properties. Last year the club asked the city to allow cutting the trees to re-open views that were being blocked.

"We want to be good stewards of these reserves," said club president Mike Jacobs. "They're important to us."

But the city and some residents think the club is going too far. The city, noting that many of Bear Reserve's trees perch on steep slopes, wants to limit the club's tree-harvesting permit to 16 trees, as a protection against erosion and landslides.

"The 30 trees denied for removal are located on a very high hazard landslide area...or within the 15-foot reduced buffer and cannot be removed," said a city memo. A permit, issued March 7, said cut-down trees are to be taken out by hand, without use of heavy machinery, and that selected timber was to be left on the ground to enrich the soil of the  reserve.

There is also concern for the effects of the cutting on a small stream that courses intermittently through the reserve, though there is some dispute about whether it's a real stream or merely runoff from nearby streets. Club leadership is appealing the  permit.

Bear Reserve, the smallest grove of trees in Innis Arden "has some of the oldest and largest trees," said another resident, John Hushagen, an Innis Arden resident and a member of a group calling itself Friends of the Bear Reserve that agrees with the city's restrictions. "We want to preserve some of the large native trees in that one tiny area of the neighborhood, because we just can't get them back from planting new little  trees."

The issue is headed to a city hearing examiner sometime in late August. There have been lawyers working the issue from all angles, for the city, the club and for Friends of the Bear Reserve.

Alan Kohn, a member of the "friends" group and a biology professor emeritus at the University of Washington, said the mature trees store huge amounts of water during winter and that cutting 46 of them would allow millions more gallons of water to soak into the reserve soil, raising the risk of erosion in an area that has already seen damaging winter washouts.

Read more: http://www.seattlepi.com/local/article/Tree-fight-Dispute-pits-Shoreline-versus-1429428.php#ixzz1Q1TNUxAH