Residents frustrated after mature trees “mowed down” for Tustin Veterans Sports Park

About 20 Jacaranda trees were cut down inside the Veterans Sports Park construction site in Tustin on Sunday, December 3, 2017. (Photo by Foster Snell, Contributing Photographer)About 20 Jacaranda trees were cut down inside the Veterans Sports Park construction site in Tustin on Sunday, December 3, 2017. (Photo by Foster Snell, Contributing Photographer)A group of Tustin residents pose for a photo outside the Veterans Sports Park construction site where about 20 Jacaranda trees had been cut down on Sunday, December 3, 2017. (Photo by Foster Snell, Contributing Photographer)About 20 Jacaranda trees were cut down inside the Veterans Sports Park construction site in Tustin on Sunday, December 3, 2017. (Photo by Foster Snell, Contributing Photographer)A group of Tustin residents pose for a photo outside the Veterans Sports Park construction site where about 20 Jacaranda trees had been cut down on Sunday, December 3, 2017. (Photo by Foster Snell, Contributing Photographer)Veterans Sports Park in Tustin will feature a Veterans Memorial, where the city will hold events on Memorial and Flag Days. (Artist rendering courtesy of the City of Tustin)Tustin resident Mick Holdsworth said he was shocked to walk by the land that will become Veterans Sports Park and see large trees uprooted. Photo courtesy of Mick HoldsworthVeteran’s Sports Park map.Show Caption of Expand
TUSTIN Mauro Cristaudo was walking his dogs outside the vacant lot that will become Veterans Sports Park when he noticed a jarring sight: Tall, decades-old jacarandas lying uprooted on their sides.
“I called over the fence to a worker, ‘Tell me that we are relocating these trees!’” Cristaudo remembered saying. “He said, ‘I’m afraid not.’”
By November’s end, Tustin, self-designated “City of Trees,” would claim 18 fewer trees. Only seven of the shady giants remain in the future park site.
Slated to debut in summer of 2019, Veterans Sport Park broke ground last month on a 32-acre parcel of the the former Marine Corps Air Station at Severyns Road and Valencia Avenue.
The multi-use park will include four soccer fields, three baseball diamonds, four tennis courts, two basketball courts, eight pickleball courts, a playground with a splash pad, a picnic area and, as a tribute to Tustin’s military heritage, a Veterans Memorial.
Over the next few months, land will be graded and underground infrastructure installed.
The first phase of the $25 million development demanded the removal of mature trees left behind when the base closed in 1999, said David Wilson, Tustin’s director of Parks and Recreation Services.
“Some were right in the middle of where the soccer fields will be,” Wilson said.
In other cases, he added, the sprawling roots would interfere with “all those things underneath the surface that you can’t see,” such as water, sewer and electrical systems.
But many residents in the Columbus Square neighborhood bordering the park wonder if better planning would have saved most of the trees.
“They were in clusters,” Cristaudo said. “You could have easily worked around them — put benches and tables in those areas, build the parking lot around a tree or two. It’s a park, for gosh sake. The first thing people look for in a park is shade.”
Julie Ann Fan complained that the city should have been more explicit with residents about any plan “to mow down trees.”
Although she and her neighbors attended public meetings about the park, Fan said, they mostly focused on questions about traffic.
“We weren’t paying attention,” she said. “We just never imagined they’d chop down those beautiful trees.”
Susanne Tirona and others wonder why some of the trees were not, at least, relocated.
“It’s horrible to destroy 50-year-old trees in perfectly good condition,” Tirona said.
In fact, the city did consider moving trees to the nearby Tustin Legacy Linear Park under construction off Red Hill Road, Wilson said. But tree specialists determined that “the chance of survival would be low,” he said.
However, Veterans Sports Park will not not go leafless. The city will plant 307 trees there, including jacarandas, live oaks, crepe myrtles and pepper trees, Wilson said.
“But those aren’t fully grown trees like the ones cut down,” Cristaudo said. “They’re not good to anybody for at last 20 years.”
Wilson offered assurances that the surviving trees are safe from the chainsaw.
He said he has had about a dozen calls or emails from residents expressing their disappointment about the trees.
“I understand people’s passion for trees,” he said. “It’s commendable.”
Homeowners will appreciate their proximity to Veterans Sports Park, Wilson predicted.
“It’s going to be Tustin’s biggest park — our flagship park,” he said.
Indeed, Fan said, she looks forward to taking advantage of the newcomer’s amenities.
“I am excited about it,” she said. “I just wish there were going to be more trees in the park.”
 
 
Source: Oc Register