Cutting Remarks

The neighborhood--rich with towering trees and forest-like hillsides--is aptly named Dana Woods.

But by next week, residents say, after nearly half of the community’s 900 eucalyptus trees are cut down, the distinction that lured many of the 250 homeowners to this Dana Point development will no longer apply.

“We’ll be Dana Wood-less,” Ruth Lambert complained Friday as she watched the thick branches of a 75-foot tree topple to the ground. She plugged her ears as the pieces were quickly fed into the jaws of a wood chipper. “That sound, that sound. . . . It turns my stomach.”

Lambert joined dozens of neighbors at the community park Friday to watch and mourn the loss of another crop of 20-year-old trees that officials with the Dana Woods Homeowners Assn. recently voted to have removed. Association board members say the action is essential because the trees are getting too old and falling limbs are making life dangerous for residents.

Since December, at least four properties have been damaged--unstable eucalyptus trees have fallen onto cars, fences, landscaping, even into a private pool. Twice, the trees dropped onto Street of the Golden Lantern, blocking traffic, said Roger Postolka, an association board member.

“We’ve been extremely lucky to this point that someone has not been injured or even killed as a result of these trees,” Postolka said. “It’s a miracle, really.”

Homeowners are unfazed by the association’s arguments. And they accuse the board of not keeping them informed. Many say they first heard of the tree removal plan last week, and when they showed up for an association meeting, they learned the board had already approved the removal.

Five days later, the first batch of trees started coming down. Brian McGarvin said he was eating breakfast Tuesday morning when he saw three men in his backyard, sawing the limbs off his treasured ash tree.

“I freaked,” McGarvin said. “I ran out there, jumped the wall and literally hugged that tree until they stopped. I know that is the only reason it’s still standing today.”

Added neighbor Sheri Cretel: “They’re taking trees that don’t even need to go. There is no system here at all and all we can do is sit here and watch.”

Such community tree disputes are hardly new, particularly in South County, where neighbors have fought on a number of different fronts, including drives to save decrepit, disease-ridden trees while urging that healthy ones be torn down that block valuable ocean views.

Sometimes, the spats wind up in court. When a Rancho Santa Margarita homeowners association hired tree trimmers to cut down a neighbor’s Italian cypress trees, which were deemed too tall for the master-planned community, a South County small-claims commissioner ordered the association to pay the woman $5,000 in damages, saying the action was “malicious.”

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In Dana Woods on Friday, after saws and chippers and dozens of men in orange vests had invaded their neighborhood for three straight days, residents stood together in the park--some seething in anger, others silently wiping away tears. Many complained that association officials refused to return their calls.

But board member Postolka said the neighbors who are upset about the trees are a minority in Dana Woods, folks who haven’t bothered to pay attention to community issues or attend association meetings in the past, where the subject has been thoroughly discussed.

“This is not a new issue. . . . We’ve been reviewing this tree problem for months and months,” Postolka said. “We’ve had an extensive study done on the condition of the trees, we’ve identified the ones with the highest liability and now we’re taking action. It isn’t like we just jumped up and did this on a whim.”

Board members said the eucalyptus trees, which have been described as “self-pruning” because they frequently drop branches, have threatened the association’s insurance policy.

In the neighborhood’s April newsletter, landscape committee chairwoman Peggy Kuehnert wrote: “If the association is not able to obtain liability insurance in the future, you know what that means.”

Yet neighbors insist that the association hadn’t given all residents a chance to review the plan, which calls for spending $35,000 in tree removal and $10,000 to replace them with 5-gallon trees other than eucalyptus.

“They can drive around and put notices on your door when you need to paint your garage, when you need to pick up your garbage cans and when you have to take down your Christmas lights, but they can’t tell us about something like this?” said Cheryl Heidner, who bought her house 12 years ago after “falling in love” with the heavily wooded slope in her backyard.

Crews removed at least 15 trees behind her house this week.

“It looks like a bomb hit out there now,” she said. “It’s a mess.”