Removal of Trees Angers Residents : Camarillo: The city allows a developer to cut down two dozen eucalyptuses on Mission Oaks Boulevard. The firm plans to widen the road.

Susie Boetticher occasionally went out of her way to drive down Mission Oaks Boulevard in Camarillo along a section residents called “the tunnel of trees.”

On the short stretch just west of Camarillo High School, two rows of eucalyptus trees--nearly a century old--rose 100 feet and wove a tapestry of light and shadow along the roadway.

“It was a few pleasurable minutes of driving through a canopy of trees,” said Boetticher, who lives nearby.

She said she was horrified to find last week that the two dozen trees on the north side of the road had been chopped down.

Camarillo officials say they allowed Pardee Construction Co. to remove the trees two weeks ago so the developer could widen the road, put in bike lanes and build a new parking lot for the high school.

It was a safety matter, officials say. Leaving the trees would have posed a dangerous blind spot for motorists leaving the new parking lot. And if the city had decided against widening the road, the area eventually could have been plagued with hazardous traffic snarls.

“We all hated to see the trees go,” Assistant City Manager Larry Davis said. “But because of the safety and traffic needs, there was no way to save them.”

But Boetticher and other area residents disagree. With a little creative planning, they say, the city could have reconfigured the road and preserved the trees, once used as a windbreak on one of the farms of the founding Camarillo family.

“Those trees were the oldest living thing in Camarillo,” said Mike Creadick, president of the Mission Oaks Homeowners Assn. “Now they’re like big dead elephants.”

Mike Mishler, a local environmentalist, added: “Some people in our city seem to be more concerned about how Camarillo should be developed instead of protecting our heritage.”

The residents say the city needs a tree ordinance--such as the one used in Thousand Oaks--to make sure that the city’s remaining eucalyptus trees are preserved.

“Eucalyptus trees are our trademark,” resident Cyndi Schutt said. “They’re valued and enjoyed by the residents of Camarillo.”

Dan Greeley, city director of engineering services, said he understands how the residents feel.

“People have a passion for trees and the ambience they create,” Greeley said. “I can understand why there are complaints. . . . People don’t like change and trees aren’t forever.”

Eventually, Greeley said, disease would have claimed many of the trees anyway. Also, as they get older, they are apt to fall over in a strong windstorm, he said.

Wednesday, a 4-year-old girl was killed by a branch that fell near a Los Angeles elementary school.

“They are not a long-lived tree,” Greeley said. “We do a lot to preserve them and extend their natural lives. But in doing so they live beyond what they should, and they grow to a height where they are susceptible to toppling.”

Bill Teller, assistant vice president of Pardee’s Ventura County division, said the company did not relish cutting the trees and went out of its way to save as many as possible.

Instead of chopping down all the trees on both sides of the road, he said, Pardee donated more land than necessary for the street’s right of way on the north side of Mission Oaks.

“I hate to cut trees,” Teller said. “I’m from Denver. We treasure trees.” But, he added, “You can’t please everyone, unfortunately.”

City officials said the city and Pardee will re-landscape the area after the street is widened.

“Eventually the roadway, with trees on both sides of the street and in the median, will recreate the feeling of the canopy over the road but it will be a wider, safer street with bike paths on both sides,” Davis said.