This story is about cutting deep with a saw.
It’s about a tree, in particular, but about a community on a much
broader scale.
Two stories caught my eye in local media this week
about the removal of a healthy, old Torrey pine along Cambridge Avenue
in Cardiff. The neighbors were right to be upset about it, as the tree
provided shade and character to one of the town’s old
neighborhoods.
For me, the loss of the tree was another blow to a
seemingly quiet trend that’s destroying all the things that make
Encinitas and its communities so special to live in. In the past
several months, I have observed old craftsman-style homes razed without
lament, replaced with McMansions that will either be sold to the
extremely wealthy or sit empty because no one can afford them anymore.
All you have to do is look at the crest of
Birmingham Drive going east, just before the freeway. There’s a
practical enclave of these recently finished McMansions sitting where
decades-old houses once stood. My heart sank when the last one was
removed about a year ago. And what has that last home been replaced
with? Nothing. It’s a gaping hole of unfinished digging.
So the cutting of that Torrey pine on Cambridge got
to me this week. The story behind its removal was explained well in a Coast News article, and
it’s interesting because while the owner lives out of state,
it’s clear from an interview that she was torn between apparent
conflicting regulations in the city of Encinitas … required
parking spaces for her sons’ new homes, and required approval
before removing a tree of “community significance.” (The
removal was done as a last result, she claims in the story.)
According to the Coast News article, the
plan’s Resource Management Element states that “mature
trees of community significance cannot be removed without city
authorization.”
To confirm this, I tried accessing the city’s
General Plan through its website, www.cityofencinitas.org. You would
think these public documents would be accessible on the city’s
site, but not all of the elements are. Ironically, the two elements of
the General Plan that would likely be at the center of all this were
the only two NOT accessible online without entering a username and
password — the Resource Management Element and Housing Element.
That oddity aside, take a look around Cardiff and
see what else is being destroyed in this chainsaw massacre of community
character in the past few years. Two examples:
— A quaint beach cottage that housed Miracles
Café, one of the most popular hangouts on the North Coast, has
been replaced by an oversized glass box with mint-green trim.
— A historic church building nearly 100 years
old isn’t such a sanctuary when it comes to preserving history
and character. The original wooden doors with oval beveled glass have
been replaced with aluminum strip-mall pieces.
Someone, somewhere, associated with these projects
— and many others around the area — had to sign on to these
changes. Someone, somewhere, actually said something along the lines
of, “Wow. This is terrific.”
The only people I can imagine would be happy with
what they’ve seen are those with so much money they’ve
bought out their own right minds, or are so much in debt with their
massive projects that they can’t afford to think anymore.
Which brings me back to that Torrey pine tree.
Just down the coast from Encinitas, Del Mar enacted
a tree ordinance in an effort to keep some level of community character
before it was slashed away. The Del Mar ordinance provides clear
instructions on how to treat their “urban forest.” Those
who want to cut an old tree such as a healthy Torrey pine must provide
proof that the tree must be removed for specific reasons as spelled out
in the ordinance.
Guess where I found the information on this
ordinance? On Del Mar’s city website. An easy search found its
“Resident’s Guide to the Del Mar Tree Ordinance” at
the site.
Trees aside, someone in city government is
approving the uprooting of community character in preference for the
McMansions and monstrosities that are eating that character alive.
Call it a massacre of character.
