Four large trees on Tramonto Drive were cut down two weeks ago, bringing to an abrupt end a debate which had persisted for almost a year between Castellammare residents and two of the homeowners over how to save the trees or widen the street, or both. The trees, an old pine and three eucalyptus, which lined a curvy section of the road just below Revello and flanked a four-house development site owned by Peter Engel and Michael Brunelle, were leveled immediately after a Board of Public Works hearing on March 1. After listening to testimony from both sides, the board ruled unanimously that the two men had the right to remove the trees rather than relinquish up to 14 feet on at least one of three properties they are currently constructing on Tramonto. ‘What it came down to,’ explained Councilwoman Cindy Miscikowski’s senior deputy Debbie Dyner, ‘is that they were not willing to incur any further delays or costs on the project, which is their right.’ To save the trees, the two men would have needed to get a variance to expand the road onto their lots, which would have entailed a public hearing and perhaps a further review by the Coastal Commission. ‘I can understand that cutting down the trees is extremely frustrating for everyone involved,’ continued Dyner, ‘considering the amount of effort on both sides to work out a compromise.’ On March 2, the day after the hearing, Miscikowski, whose office was involved in the ongoing debate, sent a letter to local residents outlining the dilemma. ‘As you may know, when the subdivision [of the lots] was approved several years ago, the Planning Department applied a condition that required widening of Tramonto Drive to today’s safety and engineering standards. At the time, this seemed straightforward enough. However, once the developers’ engineer looked more closely at the requirement and the actual placement of the trees, he realized that either the trees would have to be removed or the road would have to be routed around the trees, possibly cutting into the front yard of one or two of the houses.’ The tree controversy began last May when Castellammare resident Bart Greenhut noticed signs posted by the city indicating the four trees were slated for removal so that the street could be widened from about 22 feet to 28 feet to meet city standards. In addition, street lamps, curbs, gutters and four-foot-wide sidewalks were to be added on both sides of the street for both better drainage and pedestrian safety, all at Engel’s and Brunelle’s expense. Greenhut immediately rallied about 150 supporters to save the trees. Neighborhood meetings were held. Miscikowski’s support was enlisted. And new design plans were drawn up ‘that would both save the trees and meet city requirements,’ Greenhut told the Palisadian-Post last July. Even though Engel and Brunelle had applied to the city for the permit to remove the trees, they appeared to agree to the compromise, which would require them to cede to the city a portion of their land so the road could be rerouted around the trees. ‘We want to keep these big, beautiful trees,’ Brunelle said in an interview with the Post at the time. Greenhut now feels deceived, especially after a meeting on February 4 in which he came away believing that the city, as well as Engel and Brunelle, agreed to a design that not only improved Tramonto, but ‘met city requirements and saved the trees,’ Greenhut wrote in a letter to the Post after the March 1 hearing. He wonders if the intention of both the city and the two men was to tear down the trees ‘all along.’ Dyner saw the February 4 meeting differently. ‘While everyone was in agreement with the concept, and it seemed that what was proposed could work, when the developers finally crunched the numbers they had problems with it,’ Dyner said, adding that she only found out that they wanted to remove the trees the morning of the March 1 hearing. The first tree came down shortly after the hearing, the other three the next day. Engel said that in the end it came down to the question of how to widen the street without violating property setback regulations, which proved to be a ‘physical impossibility.’ Part of Engel’s and Brunelle’s agreement with the city is that they must replant eight trees for the four they cut down. ‘When we finish the construction, we will fix and landscape the street,’ Engel told the Post yesterday. ‘It will be very attractive and woodsy and look a lot better than it has in a long time.’ Resident Norma Spak, who last December received a Community Council service award for her work at Los Liones Gateway Park (where she works as a landscape volunteer), is looking forward to that time. ‘They [Engel and Brunelle] told us when we met with them a couple of months ago that if the trees did have to come down that they would replace them with some oaks and sycamores, which are native to this region,’ Spak said. ‘Now that the trees are gone, Tramonto is finally going to get widened and improved, which I think everyone agrees is long overdue.’
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