“Oaks spend a hundred years growing, a hundred standing still, a hundred dying.
“Someone’s got to speak up for the trees.”
Someone did.
Chris Ozyck did. He made the above remarks Monday evening as part of a plea to retain at least three oaks and a sweet gum out of a total of 30 trees in the area of Union Avenue and Fair Street slated for removal in the run-up to the start of construction of a 299-unit development at 87 Union Ave. in Wooster Square.
Ozyck was only one of three members of the public who attended a final hearing on the proposed removal, although a City Hall meeting room had been full of concerned neighbors for a previous meeting on March 7.
At that first public hearing, the developers, Adam America Real Estate and Epimoni, presented their plan for removal of only 19 trees.
Ozyck, deputy director of Yale’s Urban Resources Initiative.
A fuller removal plan was presented at Monday night’s hearing, with information provided by city parks and rec chief Rebecca Bombero in her capacity as the city’s tree warden and chief tree hearing officer; developer and project manager Peter Antoniou; and architect Michael Hunton from Langan Landscaping.
The new removal plan adds another row of trees along the Fair Street side of the proposed 87 Union St. complex. Bombero, wearing what she noted was her white striped black referee’s shirt, had called the second, and final, public hearing for Monday night because of the added trees.
The site plan for the 299-unit mixed use development itself —which aspires to help link Wooster Square to downtown — has won final City Plan Commission approval, and the ceremonial shovel has been placed in the ground symbolizing the beginning of construction.
To the right of the Union Ave. sidewalk, two oaks Ozyck wants saved.
The issue of the trees remains, because management of the tree belt is not in the bailiwick of City Plan but within the purview of state statutes.
Bombero said she and her office have received about six written communications objecting to the removal plan, and two in favor. She said she will make the decision — which trees and in which locations to go and what form the developers’ remuneration to the city will take — within three days and then distribute her determination online.
As he did at the previous meeting, landscape architect Hunton insisted that most of the trees marked for removal are in distressed condition. Part of the developers’ plan is to replace them with trees at least equalling the diameters of those to be removed.
If the developers were removing without replacing, they would have to pay the city approximately $40,000, according to Mary O’Leary’s report of the initial meeting in the New Haven Register.
Duong; You’re changing character of the street.
The pricetag will be less with replacement of similarly sized or bigger trees both on the site and elsewhere —likely within the neighborhood including the across-the-street popular dog park.
Ozyck didn’t quibble about the additional trees added to the removal list along Fair Street. He called those trees, with scraggly branches intertwined with electrical wires overhead, “volunteers” or invasives.
Ozyck did go to battle to save two oak trees on the Union Avenue side, which are on city land, and another oak and a sweet gum tree, which stand at the head of the copse at the Union and Fair corner.
“Saving the oaks will be good for the neighborhood and the building,” Ozyck insisted. He cited the presence of the old cheek by jowl with the new, which obtains both for buildings and for trees as a key characteristic of the historic Wooster Square neighborhood. Ozyck said the removal of all the old trees, especially the oaks, would be uncharacteristic for the area, leaving it “barren and devastating.”
Allan Appel Photo
Copse of the marked trees at Fair and Union.
Saving the two biggest oaks would be “good for the building and good for the neighborhood,” he argued.
Hunton insisted that the two oaks on the Union side are too close to the property line.
The oak and the sweet gum in the copse at the corner of the property, and the rest of the group, need to go but would be replaced by a “parklet,” new trees planted in better soil, Hunton said.
“The owner is designing a parklet for city use,” he said.
Ozyck insisted that the “parklet” would look barren without the oak and its gracious overhanging branches.
As to the Union Avenue side, “the whole area between the sidewalk and the front of the building is public domain. I’m asking for at least one oak in front and another at the corner,” he said.
Deputy tree warden Bill Carone and parks chief Rebecca Bombero.
New Haven Urban Design League President Anstress Farwell, another attendee, said that to plant all new trees along the street and in the future building’s entrance way, where the current copse is, could potentially make the whole area no longer look like a public street. Instead, it would look like an area where the public domain had been relinquished for the purposes of private development, she argued.
“I use the dog park across the street,” said Michelle Duong, a Yale employee who lives downtown, “and you’re right. It changes the character. I view it as a loss.”
“We could have put in [only] small shade trees,” Hunton parried, But the developer, will replace the gone city trees inch for inch either on the property or nearby, he said, and will improve the parklet, for city use.
To counter the elimination of arboreal history argument, Antoniou added, “We’re looking to reuse some of the trees in some capacity. We’re hoping to have a reminder of what’s there before.”
Marked trees along Union, looking south.
“I know you’re trying to do the right thing,” Ozyck said. “I’m trying for a compromise. I’m not saying every tree should be saved. But you have a healthy tree, and you can save it. I don’t see why you wouldn’t. Any time you can preserve trees in a neighborhood, instead of planting new ones, is a plus for a neighborhood.”
“We think what we’re doing is better overall for the city and the project,” said Hunton.
Then Ozyck shifted his arguments to dollars and cents. “They’ll provide shade and cooling,” lowering air conditioning, among other costs, he remarked. “You’re going to love these trees.”
Maybe the city should focus on removing the trees that are already dead? There are so many dead trees in Fort Wooster Park that every storm that sweeps through has residents waiting for which tree will fall on their house. Oh, but development $$$ -- well sure we'll take down down your trees.