There’s a semi-secret open house today, 6 pm at City Hall (see mtg PDF) on the big 4th Street East reconstruction project (see the Division to Nevada corridor map PDF).
I was surprised that the recommendation is to remove the eleven trees currently growing on both sides of 4th St. between Division and Washington and instead of planting new trees, replace them with hanging baskets and planters (PDF).
The 4-page concept PDF shows ‘existing photos’ of the trees on page 3 but they show the trees in winter time, not exactly a fair visual representation of what would be lost. So I dug up some 4th St. photos from my archives.
It seems to me that eleven trees make for a lot of greenery that can’t be made up by hanging baskets and pots.
See the Sat. Nfld News: Council to vote on Fourth Street plans.
Brian Hilgardner, an engineer with Bolton & Menk Engineers & Surveyors working on the project, said arborists evaluated the street and recommended removing several. He said some trees were in poor health and said the lack of space both below the surface and against the buildings didn’t allow for proper growth. Because of the buildings, the trees weren’t getting adequate light.
I do like those trees — hope they can be saved.
Thanks for the links, Griff.
See project details here:
http://www.ci.northfield.mn.us/assets/p/projects/FourthStreet_2010/project_process.html
And as I replied with sympathy to Griff’s angst-ridden comment here, the City should ensure that every email notification/distribution list that it creates should automatically include every public official and the media outlets in town so that communications like this don’t keep falling through the cracks. It’s not acceptable.
Locally grown is a media outlet?
I am a private citizen, that lives clear across town, and I knew of the meeting last week. It was in the paper.
Since the Northfield news is designated the “paper of record”, and it was published there last week, I think they met the requirement.
Here is the link, and the information is toward the bottom. March 12th.
http://www.northfieldnews.com/news.php?viewStory=51991&cache_id=6573
I think I got a mailing announcing this meeting; it was also announced in the newspaper that arrived at my door.
Archaic, I know – but pretty effective.
On the high-tech front, the tree situation was discussed fairly extensively at a recent council meeting, and that discussion was streamed via KYMN. You might want to go back and check the archive for the discussion of the whys and wherefores.
John/Patrick, thanks for chiming in. We’re talking about the communications issue over at:
https://locallygrownnorthfield.org/post/15549/
Let’s keep this discussion thread devoted to the trees and related streetscape design issues.
I found the staff info about trees and planters, etc. on p. 27 of the March 2 Council packet:
The HPC memo is on p. 33:
As for Council action from March 2, I’ve only been able to find this blurb on the right sidebar of the 4th St. Project Page:
I’m not opposed to cutting down the trees.
But as seen in my photos, these trees provided considerable shade for 30 years. They may be struggling now but wasn’t 30 years of shade worth it? Is it unreasonable to say “Well, let’s plant some trees, knowing that we can only expect to get 30 years of service from them”?
And are there really no boulevard trees that could do reasonably well (not perfect, just good enough like these ash trees) given the soil constraints and proximity to buildings?
I do agree that scrawny trees are generally preferable to no trees, or to planters.
Me too, Patrick, but many of those trees aren’t exactly scrawny. See this photo, taken in the summer of 2008 when James Gang kidnapped the America in Bloom officials:
https://locallygrownnorthfield.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/IMG_8233.jpg
https://locallygrownnorthfield.org/post/4520/
Being a new guy in town, it may be going against the decisions made to date. So here goes without being aware of the history of the downtown planning. The debate over a handful of trees seems to be at the root of something bigger.
The presence of trees appears to be part of the question of how to improve the quality of the experience in the downtown area. Has the overall experience been evaluated and considered for redesign to meet the needs of the prosperity of downtown businesses, as well as connectivity to the downtown and river area for people to access a place that attracts activity and overall effectiveness of the space usage, not just the efficiency of parking vehicles?
There are trees that can handle the conditions of the site. The question is whether or not the site is being utilized effectively to generate activity downtown, which is a can of worms to spring loose.
Does the downtown serve people or their cars? Would more tree-shaded people space along the couple of blocks of downtown serve to increase economic activity, knowing that parking would have to be increased adjacent to that area, but not necessarily right in the middle of it?
The presence of tree shade on a sloping street may or not attract people, but the overall connectivity of the space, access to the businesses and parking might be worth considering. Would there be a benefit in determining if the downtown traffic pattern was evaluated to be changed? Would long term economic prosperity continue if the downtown were redesigned to have a shaded pedestrian mall, filled with people, local artwork, farmers’ market and other artisan vendors, as well as occassional live performances. Are there other cities who have adapted their downtown to be more people centered and successfully increased prosperity and activity with tree shaded malls? Keeping in mind our climate conditions over the year, how could we do it here?
Last year, when the downtown was closed down to traffic and stores brought their products out in the street and people could move freely without traffic, there seemed to be a lot of healthy activity for a downtown. Add in the other downtown events that bring people to the area, and there has been a lot of indicators that show people have been coming with interest in what is going on. Could that be sustained over the sunny seasons enough to merrit a downtown overhaul, dunno, but what has been happening downtown when people are empowered by safe and exciting activity seems to show that it might be worth digging into a little deeper. And while we’re at it, let’s make sure we plan for the trees that are productive for more than just shading, and not wedge them into concrete bunkers.
Joe: Anyone who is new to town, and cares to reply in this thoughtful, in depth manner…. Please, Please… apply for a Board or Commission of your choice!
There’s lots of work to be done by citizen volunteers on the city’s Boards and Commissions, and sounds like you’d be a great contributor.
Go for it!
Joe, thank you for your very welcome “big picture” perspective. I think you’re right that the trees are symbolic of bigger and more difficult to solve issues than just whether or not there are trees on a single block of downtown. It sounds like the issue will come back before the Council, so you may have more opportunity to help us arrive at a good solution.
.-= (Betsey Buckheit is a blogger. See a recent post titled Council goals) =-.
I’m at the Council meeting tonight, hoping to speak to this issue before I fall asleep.
I spoke with Leif Knecht late this afternoon as to whether there might be a type of tree that could work in this type of challenging environment. He said there’s a new variety of Honey Locust soon available called a “Street Keeper” that’s suitable, as well as other trees like certain varieties of Ginkgos.
I found a reference to it here:
http://uxbridgenurseries.com/.control/UxbridgeCatalogue.pdf
Leif also suggested that if cost of trees is an issue in this challenging fiscal environment, their purchase and planting could be delayed a year or two until the City is in better shape. Or buy really small ones.
But for the reconstruction, prepare both sides of the street as if we will be planting a dozen or more trees.
Good news: sidewalk trees are back in the plan. I’ll post details in the morning.
[…] last night’s Northfield City Council meeting, asking the Council to find a way to incorporate new trees on both sides of 4th St. between Washington and Division for this summer’s 4th St. reconstru…. (See the video of last night’s meeting in this KYMN blog […]
We have a very smart Council.
As of today, the 4th street project is getting one of its finishing touches, the trees between Division and Washington streets.
After all the controversy about these trees, and councilors having widely divergent views, the value of having trees put back will be apparent, IMO, with this planting.
First of all, the selection of the actual trees could not be better; they are a very substantial size for an initial planting of that number, and they are so perfectly matched in size and shape that they will be be a great addition to the ‘architecture’ of that streetscape.
Huge congrats to whoever selected this specific group of trees, and to the councilors who supported their planting, above the ongoing objections of councilors who could not see the value of “Plant it now; it’ll be growin’ while you’re sleepin’!”