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The fate of 70 trees, neighborhood harmony, energy-saving shade and some badly fractured sidewalks is hanging over a quiet subdivision of modest homes on the west side of Sonoma.

The question marks collected in the wake of what the Sonoma Planning Department calls the "Heather Lane Area Street Rehabilitation Project," a plan to renovate streets in the project area to eliminate flooding and standing water problems, among other things. Engineering the street rehab led inexorably to the condition of curbs and gutters and, as surely as the leg bone is connected to the hip bone, the condition of sidewalks became a concern as well. That's because there is only a narrow, two-foot median between most neighborhood sidewalks and curbs.

That sliver of earth doesn't give trees with significant surface-root structure to spread out as they grow, so the trees in that row of soil have grown next to and under the adjoining sidewalks, lifting and buckling them and, in some cases, making them difficult if not impossible for wheelchair passage. The arboreal culprits in this sidewalk drama are the stately liquid amber trees planted in the 1970s which, according to consulting arborist James McNair, have large, shallow and dense root systems that grow out instead of down. The species is such a problem, said McNair at a public hearing held Aug. 25, for neighborhood residents, that, "Most cities have totally banned liquid amber for street trees." Planting the trees, as countless cities did decades ago, was, McNair said, "a mistake. There were no consulting arborists back then. People plant redwoods in the wrong places all the time. People weren't thinking about the problems back then."

McNair acknowledged that the liquid ambers have "beautiful fall colors, they're very durable, they persist." But, he added, it isn't practical to prune the damaging roots because, "it doesn't work. They grow back, or they stunt the tree, die back and the tree falls over."

Speaking to a meeting room of some 25 neighborhood residents, some of them clearly hostile, McNair candidly confessed, "My recommendation was to remove or replace these trees." Replacement would not be possible for all the trees, he said, because some block necessary sight lines for driveway entrances. Fourteen trees, therefore, would be eliminated. To replace the others, McNaire advised a selection of Pacific sunset maples, crepe myrtle and Oklahoma redbud. The redbud and crepe myrtle would be significantly smaller trees than the liquid amber they would replace, and for the maples to reach mature height of some 35 feet would take a good 30 years, McNair said.

Neighborhood resident and attorney John Kelly asked if the city had considered narrowing the width of one or more streets, thus calming traffic and allowing wider median strips for the trees to expand into, but city staff reported such a project would be too expensive and the money wasn't available.

Following McNair's presentation, the residents broke up into small groups to discuss the fate of individual trees in front of individual homes. City staff sat with each group to help guide the discussion and answer questions. A final decision on the tree removal plan may take several more weeks, if not longer.

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