Up Sucker Creek: City wants symmetrical view corridors

Asymmetry is out, Symmetry is in,

but only if you are facing south.

That's basically the argument the city planning department came up with as a reason to deny a tree-cutting permit to allow a new home to be built.

A couple appealed this decision to the DRC so they could build their new home closer to the street. In this way it would conform to other new homes on the block and in the neighborhood, allow a reasonably-sized back yard, and take out a tree that is not particularly healthy or beautiful and replace it with another one that is. The old walnut tree is, however, old, and big.

But being an old and big tree was not the reason the planner gave for preserving the tree. It was because - if one was standing at the north end of the block looking south, it would alter the symmetry of the tree crown at the other end of the block. What??? Symmetry is now a criterion for tree-cutting permits?

If one stands at the south end of the block by the disputed tree and looked north, they would find the block to be quite barren - the only tall tree crowns visible are probably from Tryon Creek Park. Perhaps the northern neighbors should be required to plant tall trees to conform with neighbors' and planners' desire for canopy density in the city rather than pick on one old tree.

Thankfully, the Development Review Commission decided that the city's claim that cutting the tree would be a "significant negative impact" on the neighborhood was not justified and overturned staff's wholly discretionary (illogical) decision. The sorry part of the DRC meeting last night was the painful discussion about now to keep this tree, and not on why anyone should be required to keep an unhealthy one. What should have taken 10 minutes took 1-1/2 hours, but still 2 of the 8 commissioners voted no.

A quick note to the planning department: Don't send out documents with contradicting information. In two places - one being the cover page - the lot is refered to as being in a R-7.5 zone. In another spot, there is reference to a R-6 zone. It is not in the First Addition-Evergreen Neighborhood, these 2 neighborhoods divide at A Ave. You have zoning maps - look it up. (R-6 is the correct zone.)

This kind of simple blunder and the silliness of maintaining a "symmetrical" view corridor - in a discretionary decision - does not speak well of of the planning staff. If this is how they use their extreme power over peoples' lives and fortunes, just about anything could happen on any application, depending on the preferences and asesthetic sensibilities of the planners that day.

Selling it with pictures:

Left photo from staffreport shows walnut tree as part of visible tree crown. Right photo is from further away and shows cedar tree on property as dominant tree on the horizon. Both images from Google Street Maps.