SALEM, Ore. (AP) — Salem has issued a fine of more than $138,000 for the removal of 100-plus trees in south Salem.

According to the city, 48 of those trees were Oregon white oaks, which are protected, The Statesman Journal reported. The fine was issued to the property owners, property manager and a local tree service connected to the vacant property.

The owners also will be required to plant new trees that are equal in value to the trees removed. City ordinances require city approval before removing some trees on private property, depending on the number, size and type of tree.

Officials told the Statesman Journal in December a permit application for the tree removal was neither submitted nor approved by Salem’s planning department.

Following public concern over the tree removal and questions from the Statesman Journal, staff in December began investigating.

Marion County property records list three individuals as owners. They appear to have owned the land for decades through a trust and are based out of Washington state. It wasn’t clear if they plan to pay the fine or appeal.

They own several parcels of land in the area and the land where the trees were felled is zoned for commercial retail use after being rezoned from residential agricultural and developing residential in 2016.

No applications for development have been submitted to the city in recent years.

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PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — An independent forester hired to do a hasty review of the state’s controversial hazard tree removal program has concluded that 96 percent of the 2,200 trees he recently examined were appropriately marked for removal.

He said the program also has the necessary protocols in place to identify which trees damaged by the 2020 wildfires are hazardous, The Oregonian/OregonLive reported. And he said the arborists and foresters who were supposed to be marking those trees have the appropriate qualifications called for by the state.

The report is likely to satisfy the Oregon Department of Transportation and its main contractor monitoring the program, CDR Maguire. But the forester’s report, released Monday, contradicted or didn’t vet some allegations whistleblowers made to lawmakers.

Galen Wright, president of Washington Forestry Consultants, was hired under a $48,000 contract to review the post-wildfire tree removal program after landowners, former employees on the project and other advocates told lawmakers that CDR Maguire was inexperienced in the type of work and mismanaging the program.

Some of the allegations included widespread mismarking and overcutting of non-hazardous and live trees by unqualified personnel, drug use by workers in the field, inadequate safety protocols and alleged instances of fraud over reported work hours and documentation of trees being cut.

So far the state has marked about 83,000 of 140,000 trees it currently estimates it will need to cut down and remove as a result of nine large wildfires last year, most of which ignited Labor Day. Contractors have felled about 41,000 of those trees to date.

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With Portland’s one-year-old tree code not working as intended, city officials will meet this month to look at tweaks.

The Portland City Council voted Wednesday to establish a committee of representatives of the bureaus impacted by tree-related issues, following months of delays. Commissioner Amanda Fritz noted that what was originally supposed to be a one-year update of Title 11 has turned into a chance to fix it.

Fritz said she had hoped to put together a package to amend Title 11 this past March, when the council heard an annual review of the young code. But a problem related to Portland’s system of government emerged, she said.

“It turns out, the challenge is, each one of us has a bureau or several bureaus that have a stake in this tree issue,” she said.

Commissioner Nick Fish oversees public utilities. Commissioner Dan Saltzman oversees development services and housing. Mayor Charlie Hales oversees planning and sustainability. Commissioner Steve Novick oversees transportation. And Fritz oversees parks and recreation.

On top of that, two citizen commissions – the Urban Forestry Commission and the Planning and Sustainability Commission – help oversee Title 11.

Fish called for bureau representatives to meet within two weeks to identify areas of concern regarding Title 11 and then bring goals before the council no later than the end of August.

“There’s nothing like putting everyone in one room, locking the door and banging heads,” he said.

Portland’s Citywide Tree Project began in 2008 to develop consistent guidelines relating to the “urban canopy” across different land use categories. Title 11 was finished in 2011, but didn’t get off the ground until the recession ended.

“The reality is, we haven’t been able to find consensus,” senior policy adviser Pooja Bhatt said. The exception, she said, was a provision allowing branches up to a 1/4-inch in thickness to be pruned without a permit.

Critics on both sides say the policy has been a misfire. Some developers and project designers say fines under Title 11 are so steep, and restrictions so onerous, that many owners are electing to remove trees and pay thousands of dollars in lieu.

Advocates for trees say Title 11 falls short, though it’s better than nothing.

“One of the myths about Title 11 is that trees are being preserved,” said the Audubon Society’s Jim Labbe, an advisory committee member invited by Fritz to testify at Wednesday’s meeting.

Labbe said various citizen groups have proposed a site review process for developers, so they can make cases for which trees need to come down. He said exemptions for commercial and industrial land should be abandoned.

Over several months, critics from the development community have begun to sit out the public process to revise the law. Four members of the Tree Code Oversight Advisory Committee quit after the city added four people favorable to tree preservation to the eight-person committee, effectively minimizing their voices.

“We kind of felt like, what’s the point of going?” Jeff Fish of Fish Construction told the 91��Ƶ.

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Following several well-publicized demonstrations last year, the Portland City Council will consider further protections for trees.

The city’s Urban Forestry Commission and Planning and Sustainability Commission are forwarding separate versions of a similar plan to amend Title 11, the section of Portland’s code of ordinances titled “Trees.” Both plans would do three things: protect more trees, raise fine amounts so that older trees are more expensive to remove, and require notification be given to neighbors when trees of a certain size are being targeted for removal.

Last fall, protesters pitched camp in several century-old Douglas fir and sequoia trees in Southeast Portland to keep them from being cut down to accommodate development.

The council on the proposed amendments at 2 p.m. on March 3 at council chambers at City Hall.

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Salem Health‘s redevelopment plan for an 8.4-acre parcel adjacent to its hospital took one step forward last week and two steps back this week.

After gaining permission from the Oregon Land Use Board of Appeals to demolish 90-year-old Howard Hall, hospital administrators learned this week that they cannot proceed with plans to create a large parking lot and remove nine significant trees. LUBA‘s latest decision throws a monkey wrench into the overall project.

“We’re just really surprised,” hospital spokeswoman Sherryll Hoar said. “We never thought LUBA wouldn’t agree with the (Salem City Council) on this one.”

Salem Health officials want to demolish Howard Hall, create a commemorative garden, develop a playground (open to the public) for children with disabilities and construct a “therapy loop” for patients relearning to walk.

However, plans for the site also include a surface parking lot with 264 spaces, which is more than Salem Revised Code allows on a parcel that size. Plus, if a parking lot of that size were allowed, its development would trigger necessary removal of nine significant trees. Hospital officials asked that the number of spaces be approved on the grounds that the parking would serve existing buildings on other campus lots, and the Salem City Council gave its OK in August.

The South Central Association of Neighbors (SCAN) filed an appeal with LUBA, arguing that city code does not allow parking spaces provided for the subject lot to be located on another lot. LUBA agreed with SCAN and remanded the decision to the City Council.

The nine trees would have been removed to make space for the parking lot. LUBA determined that because the parking lot wouldn’t be allowed, the trees wouldn’t need to come out.

“We don’t know what we’re going to do now,” Hoar said. “We found out Monday afternoon and are currently consulting with our team on how to proceed.”

Hoar predicts that the hospital’s development team will make a decision by the end of the week, but said LUBA’s decision will require significant changes to existing plans.

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Members of the Northwest District Association are appealing a project to get clarification on how the Historic Land Commission views historic trees on properties.

Earlier this year, a proposal to build two apartment complexes on Northwest 19^th Avenue and Johnson Street was approved by the commission. As part of the project, four 125-year-old elm trees will be knocked down.

The neighborhood association initially fought the project to save the trees but eventually acquiesced after created a mitigation plan. Construction is expected to start on the complexes in November.

But association members are still confused as to why the project was approved. They say the commission broke a code – Portland City Code 33.445.320 – that requires consideration as to how projects will affect historic districts as a whole. The committee failed to incorporate the trees, which are a significant part of the district, said John Bradley, the association’s land-use chair.

“Even though it’s an appeal, we’re actually going to the council for advice. It’s not adversarial at all,” Bradley said. “We just want to know if (the trees) aren’t going to be considered as part of the historic design process, then what is?”

The appeal will be heard on Wednesday by Portland City Council.

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Construction work will start Monday at 7 a.m. on a portion of the Portland-Milwaukie Light Rail Project on Southwest Lincoln Street between First and Fourth avenues.

To prepare for the widening of Lincoln Street and the relocation of utilities, TriMet will need to remove up to 60 trees in the next seven weeks. The work will be done by Harrity Tree Specialists of Portland.

The Lincoln Street work is one of several early bid projects for the Portland-Milwaukie Light Rail project along its 7.3-mile line. Work on a Willamette River bridge that will hold light rail as well as bus, pedestrian and bike traffic is already  under way.

The Portland-Milwaukie Light Rail Project is a $1.49 billion endeavor expected to open in fall of 2015.

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Early construction of the Portland-Milwaukie light-rail project will begin this week with the cutting of 60 trees in downtown Portland. The trees, located along Southwest Lincoln Street between First and Fourth avenues, are being cut in order to make room for street widening that will allow for new construction such a light-rail station and bicycle lanes. A total of 780 trees are expected to be cut during construction of the light-rail project, but
Construction will take place between 7 a.m. and 5 p.m. for three weeks, with street parking on Lincoln Street to be permanently removed.

At total of 40 trees will be planted along Lincoln Street. TriMet is in the process of procuring the remaining 1,960 trees with the idea that if the trees are purchased now for the last sections of the light-rail project, they will be more mature and healthier than saplings by the time they are planted in the next few years.

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If you’re going to tear down a tree in a Portland neighborhood, you know there’s going to be a fight, even if you plan on planting more trees in the future.

That’s what Portland developer Kevin Partain is finding out with his to subdivide a vacant lot in North Portland and construct three new homes on it. While the usual land-use and zoning hurdles stand in his way, the biggest obstacle seems to be tearing down a 106-year-old at the .

Neighbors who don’t want the tree torn down have chained a sign to it letting passersby know that the developer is going to remove the tree. The issue even caught the attention of television news station KGW, which full of monkey puns and tilt shots of the tree

In order to comply with the city tree ordinance, the developer has planned to plant four two-inch diameter trees on the site to mitigate the loss of the 19.5-inch Monkey-puzzle tree. But the move isn’t enough to ease the concerns of neighbors who say they’ll will be losing a tree that’s almost as old as the city itself.

I’ll be the first to admit that when I come across a Monkey-puzzle tree in the city it’s always a pleasant surprise and a departure from the common firs, oaks and elms. But at the same time, it’s also nice when a developer is looking to come in and add value to an up-and-coming neighborhood.

The good thing is the tree is on the edge of the lot, and there is a chance that the developer could still build the homes without tearing down the tree. Only time will tell, though.

In the meantime, the Bureau of Development Services is still accepting comments on the subdivision of the land until the end of the day today. Contact Katy Harnden at 503-823-3581, if you would like to comment on the issue.

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