Community response halts city’s tree removal for now

How does it feel to halt a widely opposed government policy? Satisfying, according to Lewko… How does it feel to halt a widely opposed government policy? Satisfying, according to Lewko Korzeniwsky.

Together with a group of concerned Squirrel Hill residents, Korzeniwsky convinced city councilman Bill Peduto and assistant public works director Mike Gable to halt the mass removal of potentially unsafe street trees in the 14th ward, ending a two-month-long struggle.

“We thought it was a tremendous victory,” Korzeniwsky said. “They will halt the tree removal until there is some kind of organized panel to study the tree removal with citizen input.

There will also be a mechanism to appeal the forestry division’s plans to remove individual trees.”

At last Thursday’s meeting at the Squirrel Hill Children’s Institute, more than 100 attendees came to voice their concerns about the city-wide tree removal. Peduto, Gable, city council president Doug Shields and other city officials attended the meeting.

Korzeniwsky’s wife, Terri Gluek, explained the main victories of the evening.

“We wanted and got assurance from Public Works to halt tree removals once the last seven ‘hazardous’ trees [in the 14th ward] are removed and until some issues can be resolved,” she said.

In addition, attendees were told about an appeals process for saving trees that the city intended to remove. The city will also make a better effort to notify residents surrounding the trees condemned to be removed.

Peduto and Shields will also work to see that tree removal will be staggered. Gable emphasized that Public Works will continue to remove trees around Pittsburgh, because they are still liabilities.

“For two years prior, we’ve been removing a tree or so on each street and not affecting the public as much. The 14th Ward is a unique case. There we are removing maybe six, seven or eight trees on a street at a time,” Gable said.

Gable says the ‘hazardous’ trees in Squirrel Hill will still be removed though.

“They asked us to pull back from what’s going on in the 14th Ward. We will rethink the 14th Ward. But the trees are still dangerous,” Gable said. “We could be back in a month’s time.” At the meeting, some attendees questioned if these trees were really hazardous.

Gluek said that the basis of the tree removal plan was a superficial investigation, citing the Davey Resource Group’s tree assessment in 2005.

The Davey Report says: “A tree inventory by its very nature involves only cursory visual observations of each tree in order to gather basic information. No tree receives a detailed examination or inspection during the initial inventory.”

Throughout the last two months, questions were raised about whether or not the city’s plan was clear. Korzeniwsky hoped that these questions would be answered at the meeting.

“The Squirrel Hill Urban Forest Coalition set the agenda. For the first 30 minutes, Public Works was to give us a presentation as to what was going on. Then there would be 30 minutes of questions and then 30 minutes of dialogue. We did not do that. We never got through the questions part,” he said.

Korzeniwsky was frustrated that much of the time allotted for questions and answers was taken up by a 45-minute presentation.

“They gave us a presentation on the history of tree planting. It was very nice but not why we were there,” he said. “It was a somewhat insultingly fluffy, feel-good presentation that was a waste of our time.”

With little time left for questions, details on how the city will include the public in the tree-removal plan were not explained. The residents also did not have the opportunity to raise questions about replanting.

Korzeniwsky said that some residents spoke to city forester David Jahn about being moved up the tree-replanting priority list.

“That was not a promise. They said we may be able to accommodate the one block on Douglas Street that lost 12 enormous trees. It is the worst affected block in the city in my view,” Korzeniwsky said.

Gable said that replanting is the largest way that citizens can be involved in this plan.

The plan is considered by many to be a public safety issue. And public safety is not usually viewed as a democratic process.

“I don’t know what warrants public input or not. There doesn’t need to be a public forum if it’s an issue of public safety,” Gable said. “If a playground is unsafe, it’s a liability. The city replaced 130 playgrounds in Pittsburgh. It’s a plan that’s been going on for 10 years. We don’t go to the public and say if they want the playgrounds removed.”

Gable reaffirmed that the trees are liabilities and that he doesn’t want to put people at risk.

“I don’t want to roll that dice. I don’t want to be there when a tree falls on a person or on property. We want to be proactive.”