City Point Bids Farewell To 60-Year-Old Maple

After a week of community outcry, John Cesaroni heard the city’s reasoning for seeking to fell a beloved neighborhood tree in front of his house — and embraced the inevitable.

Cesaroni (at right in top photo) was one of several neighbors who contacted the city after the parks department said it planned to take down the 60-year-old, 32-inch-wide, 35-feet tall red maple on Hallock Avenue near the corner of Sea Street in the City Point neighborhood.

When a truck grazed a tree on his property last month, Cesaroni asked the parks department to give the tree a check-up and make sure it was going to survive the blow. That tree was OK, said city forester Fernando Lage (at left in photo). But another tree on the property was structurally unsound and had to go.

On April 1 he put a notice on the tree declaring the parks department’s intent to take it down. That’s when Cesaroni and several neighbors started rallying to save the tree — or at least to have a say in the process of removal.

Teacher Jason Schneider sent an e‑mail to neighbors with the subject ​“Please oppose TREE REMOVAL on HALLOCK” asking them to call parks department Tree Warden Christy Hass and ask her why the tree was coming down.

Lage wrote a report explaining the tree’s structural defects and awarding the situation a ​“risk rating” score of 9 out of 12, meaning its removal is a high priority for the department. He scheduled a meeting Thursday early morning to communicate that to neighbors. Only Cesaroni showed up.

According to the report, the tree shows several signs of vertical internal decay, likely to spread throughout the inside of the trunk. Lage also found severe decay in a major ​“branch union” or ​“crotch” where the branches meet the trunk, from past storm damage. ​“If [those branches] were ever to fall, the whole tree would collapse and fall,” he said. ​“In this case, it’s not worth it” to prune the tree.

Tree decisions regularly bring complaints to Hass’s door — whether a tree comes down, or not. Her department recently took criticism for not having acted on complaints about a perilous 30-foot-tall tree that eventually fell during a snowstorm on Beverly Road near the door to the home of a 92-year-old woman. That incident sparked Beaver Hills/Beverly Hills Alder Richard Furlow to call for a city hearing on tree-removal decisions; it is scheduled to take place at City Hall this coming Tuesday night beginning at 6.

“It’s a line that you walk every day … We all have a connection to trees in different ways. They are living things. They don’t always respond the way we think they should,” Hass said. She called community input important for determining whether a tree should be taken down or not.

If a tree is ​“dead, dying, diseased or structurally unsound,” the city is required by state statute to post a notice for 10 days tagging it for removal. Neighbors have those 10 days to register their protests. After that, Hass and Lage will meet with the neighbors to argue their case for why it should be taken down. If neighbors still disagree with the city after that, they may speak out at a public hearing.

Hass said she would then use their testimony and the written report to make a decision. ​“If they still disagree, they can take me to court,” she said, which has not happened in her decades working for the city.

Now that they have a fuller report, neighbors seem to be satisfied. Schneider said he was working and could not attend Thursday morning’s meeting, but that ​“the report certainly sounds valid. Going forward, it sounds like if the tree is structurally unsound, it should come down.”

But, he added, ​“it absolutely should be replaced. I will absolutely be making a request to replace it.”

Lage said neighbors can request another tree through the parks department’s website. People have been more vocal about and involved in the process of tree removals since news reports detailed United Illuminated’s plan to take down trees that interfered with power lines, he said. ​“It brought a lot of light to trees in the city.”

The tree is one of a series of grand older trees along and near the sliver of Hallock Avenue severed from the rest of the street by I‑95. Neighbors like Jeff Hurwitz love what trees add to the area and worry about the gradual arboreal loss in recent years.

However, Hurwitz, who has lived in the neighborhood for five years, hadn’t paid notice to the pending death sentence for the red maple near the corner of Sea Street during his daily walks with his lab mix Kimba.

“It’s an old tree. It’s an old neighborhood; it has character,” said Hurwitz, who’s 28 and self-employed. While he feels the removal of trees from Bayview Park (across from the endangered red maple) and the Long Wharf Nature Preserve has harmed the neighborhood, he has no concern about this particular tree, especially if it poses a public danger, he said.

Other neighbors interviewed at random Tuesday echoed his sentiments.

“I don’t care one way or another. It’s not much of a tree; you can take it down,” said Tom Ahern, a longtime neighborhood activist who owns a multi-family house on the block.

“This thing’s been trouble — Christ, for years,” remarked Bob Gasper, a retired maintenance worker who lives two doors down from the red maple. ​“See the middle? See the big limb? Limbs have been falling left and right.”

He pointed across the street to Bayview Park, where new trees have been planted.

Next-door neighbor Jennifer Curr spoke up for the red maple as she arrived home with her husband.

“I don’t think they should take it down,” she said.

“Look at the top of it!” argued her husband (who declined to be identified or named). ​“A limb came down and hit my car.”

“But,” Curr insisted, ​“it’s historical!”

Before hearing the results of the report, Lucian Addario said he was confused about why that tree in particular was being tagged. Owner of Hamden business Lucian’s Florist & Greenhouse, Addario said the tree looked healthy at first glance. ​“Why is that one being singled out?” he asked. He said he worries about a ​“disconnect between the powers-to-be and the importance of the function of trees.”

But after knowing there was a chance it might fall and hurt someone, Addario said he was at peace with the city’s decision.

“So be it, I guess,” he said.

But, he added, the replacement should be a tree ​“of substance.” Maybe a four-inch caliper.