If a tree falls in a parking lot, does anyone care?
Trees and cars really don’t mix, so it’s ironic that the City of Laguna Beach is trying to save trees in a parking lot.
To make matters worse, these are new trees that were planted during the $11 million Village Entrance project by contractor Michael Baker International. Now, less than three years after the ribbon cutting, about 15% of the 118 trees in the parking lot either need to be removed, moved or replaced.
Tree mortality should be less than 5%, according to urban planning experts, but what is perhaps more concerning is that of the 18 trees in question, eight oaks need to be replaced with redbud trees. In other words, the oaks were inappropriate for their location.
Local landscape veterans Ann Christoph and Ruben Flores spoke during Tuesday’s City Council meeting about the issue.
“We think there’s some trees that could be saved or kept,” said Christoph.
“There’s some great trees there,” added Flores. “There were some mistakes made at the beginning of the project.”
Those mistakes are now being paid out of the city’s budget, not the contractor’s, because the warranty ran out – kind of like when your Home Depot landscape return policy expires after a year.
Either way, perhaps all of this will be a moot point when the new parking structure is built and all the trees are ripped out.
