IRVINE : Residents to Get Survey on Tax Plan

The city plans to mail surveys this week to all 7,700 homes in the Northwood community to ask residents whether they are willing to pay for the landscaping and paving of a tree-lined dirt path.

The City Council said last month it wants to gauge reaction to a proposed property tax before taking the steps needed to pass it.

The survey will ask residents whether they would be willing to pay a $74-a-year tax for five years in exchange for getting the 1.4-mile linear park built soon.

A group of Northwood residents has been pushing city officials to pave and landscape the strip of land, which runs behind about 200 homes in the middle of the community. The land once held a railroad spur line that served a citrus packinghouse.

For more than two years, city officials have told residents that there was no money to improve the strip of land. The tax is the latest solution proposed for raising the nearly $2.3 million needed to landscape, light and pave an eight-foot-wide path for pedestrians and bicyclists that would run through the linear park.

In the survey, residents will also be asked whether they would like the linear park to be lined on the south by the existing row of eucalyptus trees or whether new trees should be planted.

Last month, the trees generated a minor controversy when the City Council agreed with the request of some residents to chop down the eucalyptus trees, but two weeks later had second thoughts.

The council at first said the 250 trees should be replaced by smaller trees needing less maintenance. The decision was at the request of residents living next to the trees, who complained that heavy branches tended to fall off the old trees. But after other residents spoke in favor of saving the trees, the council said it would give the trees another chance.

The survey will come with a short summary of the merits of keeping and removing the trees, Assistant City Manager Allison Hart said. She will summarize the historic significance of the trees along with the residents’ concern for danger and increased maintenance should the trees remain.

Rows of eucalyptus trees normally are protected by a city policy to preserve trees that are a tie to the city’s agricultural past--the tall trees once served as windbreaks to huge citrus groves.