A tree grows in El Segundo--and neighbors want to keep it that way.

For the time being, the big old magnolia tree on Virginia Street in El Segundo won’t get the ax.

And Roy Lundgren, a self-professed tree lover, can take the credit.

After learning that the 70-year-old magnolia across the street from his house at 211 Virginia was destined to be chopped down to make way for a neighbor’s driveway, Lundgren wasted no time.

First, he got more than 90 people from all over town to sign a petition to save the tree, which is on city property. Then, last Tuesday, he took the petition to City Hall. The council, swayed by his emotional pleas, passed an emergency ordinance temporarily barring the tree’s removal until it was determined whether the tree could be saved.

“I feel it is a miracle” to be able to move fast enough to save the tree, the 68-year-old Lundgren said. He said the magnolia is one of a number that line each side of the street and form a canopy of sorts.

“We think it is a landmark block because it is so beautiful with the trees.”

That’s not the way Jim Kizirian sees it. He said the 60-foot-high tree stands in the path of the driveway he wants to build to serve two 5-unit apartment buildings he is constructing.

Moreover, Kizirian said, the tree’s roots have caused the sidewalk to buckle and crack, and it sheds big, brown leaves like mad.

“I should have knocked it down a year ago,” said Kizirian, who earlier had won permission from the city’s Recreation and Parks Commission to remove the tree.

He calls Lundgren “tree crazy.”

City Manager Fred Sorsabal said the city’s engineers are looking at Kizirian’s blueprints to determine whether the driveway can be redesigned and the tree saved. The matter should be settled when council members meet a week from Tuesday, he said.

“The tree is on hold right now,” Sorsabal said.