West Seattle Blog…

Beach Drive will soon be a little less green

June 17, 2007 at 12:08 pm | In Development, Environment | 11 Comments

Five months after we posted about a landowner’s application for a permit to chop down more than a dozen trees (and surrounding greenery) on a steep slope over Beach Drive — below a house on Atlas — the decision’s in.

It says in part “this … will result in adverse impacts to the environment,” but since those “impacts” are “not expected to be significant,” the greenery removal gets the green light. (The decision mentions one public comment of concern was received, focusing on slide risks in the area; appeals are also possible on decisions like these, and the city site explains how.)

11 Comments

1. Interesting tie-in to this story, which is not far from the Atlas and Beach Drive addresses.

   http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/320177_trees18.html

   Comment by ML — 3:56 pm June 17, 2007 #

2. Thanks for sharing that; we just got home after a few hours out and hadn’t checked the newspaper sites yet for WS news. How shortsighted and just plain wrong. Hope they figure out who, and penalize them mightily; in the big picture of our lives and planet, trees are vastly more important than views (and we say that as homeowners who would have a much better view if not for some of our neighbors’ trees but wouldn’t DREAM of hurting the trees; the benefits they bring, including birds and oxygen, are too great, and we can just get off our rumps and walk a few blocks downhill if we want a better look at the water).

   Comment by WSB — 6:30 pm June 17, 2007 #

3. I’ll probably appeal this, so anyone with expertise in environmental law should feel free to contact me (flab@cool-studio.net).

   Comment by Rich — 11:21 pm June 17, 2007 #

4. ML…thanks….as soon as I heard uphill from Me-Kwa-Mooks to the southeast I got a pretty good idea of the perpetrator. They’ve done it before. I cleaned the house next door for 18 years…they care about nothing and no one but themselves…sad…

   Comment by Jan — 11:34 pm June 17, 2007 #

5. I am not familiar with the exact details of the site in question however from the photo it looks like your typical modern ‘green slope’ in Seattle. Chock full of fast growing, yet short lived, Poplar and Cottonwood, and choking to death with that nastiest of plant, English Ivy. If nothing is done, the area will be a ecological dead zone in the not so distant future. This project, with its stated use of Native NW trees and plants, and hopefully some conifers, may actually improve the ecological and geological viability and stability of the area over the LONG haul.

   If you have English Ivy in your yard, please get rid of it. http://ivyout.org/

   Comment by Mike — 6:30 am June 18, 2007 #

6. A little soil sterilant on their lawn or front entry plantings is a nice gesture in a case like this. Don’t worry, depending on the soil pH and amount of precipitation, the sterilant only lasts about a year- less time than the damage done by the tree-topping.

   Comment by ninja — 8:09 am June 18, 2007 #

7. Second that on the ivy. And kudos to the hardworking volunteers who join work parties to root it out of many of our public spaces. As for the species of trees on this lot, we’re no experts, but we do know they’ve been there, and been tall, for almost 15 years, when we first noticed a “for sale” sign on the property in our early years in WS and wished that we had the $ to buy it and not build on it. We’re naturalborn skeptics and wonder if “native species” just means a few clumps of salal.

   Comment by WSB — 8:16 am June 18, 2007 #

8. Concerning the article MJ posted a link to. I have a suggestion for the owner who’s trees were illegally topped. Have some posts planted on the top of two trees and hang a nice big weatherproof banner facing the houses that says “Enjoy The View A**hole!!”

   Comment by flipjack — 8:39 am June 18, 2007 #

9. flipjack – reminds us of a recent story out of Portland about someone who lives under the path of the new downtown tram (and supposedly had been assured they would not have been in said path) put up a huge protest sign with the F word.

   Comment by WSB — 1:00 pm June 18, 2007 #

10. Funny…I posted the same comment on the PI site and they deleted it saying it violates the terms I agreed to. phrumph!

    Comment by flipjack — 6:20 pm June 18, 2007 #

11. It’s hard for me to tell from the photo exactly what’s there, and I’ll have to look over the supporting documents a bit more for myself, but I’ll just mention as one of the regular forest-restoration volunteers in West Seattle–15 years is *nothing* when it comes to trees. Short-lived in the case of trees means 50 or 100 years, and the problem is that when they die, the ivy and the Himalayan blackberry have taken over the understory so that replacement trees can’t grow. A lot of our restoration work involves tree planting for this very reason. If we don’t both clear the invasive plants, including tree seedlings, AND plant native trees, large chunks of treed land in West Seattle will be empty within 50 years. Since a lot of this land is sloped, you can imagine the results of that.

    Comment by Genevieve Williams — 10:47 am June 28, 2007 #

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