LAGUNA BEACH : Action Too Late to Save Eucalyptus

Until recently, nobody really noticed the towering eucalyptus tree beside City Hall. City officials couldn’t say how old the tree was or how tall. And the city Design Review Board apparently ignored the tree when approving plans for renovating the corner where it stood.

But when public works employees began sawing off the tree’s limbs, the action resulted in a petition drive, a promise to replace the eucalyptus with $10,000 worth of new trees, and a proposal to fine people who chop down large trees in the future.

Mayor Lida Lenney successfully suspended the felling about halfway through the process but later was convinced that the tree was damaged too severely to be saved.

“I’m a tree-hugger, and this was not an easy decision,” Lenney said.

The ax came down on the eucalyptus Feb. 28, according to Linda Rushing, a Laguna Canyon Conservancy member who phoned city officials as soon as she noticed workers sawing the tree.

According to Lenney, members of the Design Review Board had approved a plan that included removing the tree. But she is not sure that board members realized the implications of the renovation blueprint.

“When they passed the plans, it appears they just didn’t see it,” Lenney said.

After Rushing talked to Lenney, the tree work was halted, leaving just 25 feet of what Rushing said had been a 70-year-old tree about 35 feet in height.

Lenney said council members thought the tree was worth saving and that plans were made to see how the renovation could accommodate it.

But a few days later, a landscape architect told her the tree would probably rot in the core and could fall.

This week the City Council decided it was “better to go ahead and cut down the tree,” Lenney said.

The council also approved spending $10,000 from a contingency fund to buy mature trees to replace the eucalyptus, she said.

Seeking to avert future tree mishaps, Rushing and several members of the Laguna Beach Beautification Committee are pushing for fines to be attached to an existing ordinance prohibiting the removal of “heritage trees.”

However, there is some disagreement about what constitutes a “heritage tree.”

Rushing contends that “heritage trees” are those with circumferences measuring more than 55 inches. But City Manager Kenneth Frank said that other factors besides girth determine which trees qualify for the status.

“They’re historic, stately trees,” Frank said. “There’s a process for placing trees on the list of heritage trees . . . there’s only about 50 in the city, most are on private property and there are very few eucalyptus among them.”

But Rushing, who cited several examples of eucalyptus trees destroyed to make way for development projects, said the city should be more cautious in assessing the fate of trees in the area.

“It’s ironic that the same City Council that is saving a whole canyon full of trees is beginning their renovation by cutting one down,” Rushing said.