Trees sacrificed for senior center project Trees sacrificed for senior center project (February 13, 2004)

21 heritage trees will be cut down

By Grace Rauh

More than twenty heritage trees around the Mountain View Senior Center will be coming down to make way for the new Senior Center and a parking lot.

The city will remove ten trees before the old Senior Center is demolished, and another ten will be cut down to create more parking spaces.

And a single tree in the northeastern corner of the property will be on the chopping block to give construction crews working on the new Senior Center better access to the project. A city study has found that the heritage trees marked for removal at the center are not healthy and may not live long on their own anyway.

A few residents from the Park Vista Apartments, which borders the Senior Center property, attended Tuesday night's city council meeting to try and save the five heritage trees that sit between the apartment complex and the proposed parking lot.

By removing the heritage trees, the city "is also removing a historical setting that was once there," said Park Vista resident Karla Rogers. "I enjoy the trees."

Rogers is worried that without the trees to provide shade and absorb the sun, Park Vista will become hot and unpleasant. Apartment manager Elsie Hubbard noted that the trees also act as a noise and visual buffer against car traffic. If the trees came down "it would be like a race track up against our building," she said.

The council voted to cut down the heritage trees and plant three 24-inch box trees for every larger tree removed. The old Senior Center must be demolished before construction on the new center can begin in the fall 2005.

E-mail Grace Rauh at grauh@mv-voice.com

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