Grant Blanco posed one question to the Santa Barbara City Council on Tuesday: “What’s more important: protecting private property rights or looking at something pretty?”
The answer the City Council gave him? Looking at something pretty.
“The urban forest is our public trust,” Mayor Cathy Murillo said. “The trees belong to everybody, just like the creeks, just like the shoreline.”
The City Council delivered a polite but blunt blow to Grant Blanco and his mother, Karen Blanco, on Tuesday. No, they can’t remove the towering pine tree in the front yard of a home in the 2100 block of Red Rose Way on Santa Barbara’s Mesa. The vote was 6-1, with Councilman Jason Dominguez believing the tree was a possible safety hazard.
Karen Blanco wanted to cut down the tree because she said it’s unsafe and could fall on someone and kill them. The city’s arborist said the tree is healthy and in no danger of falling down. Since the tree is within the 20-foot front yard setback of the house, Blanco would need to get a permit to take down the tree.
Depending on whom you ask, the tree is either 60, 70 or even 80 feet tall and was planted about 60 years ago.
Grant Blanco, a Los Angeles resident, delivered a stern and at times angry message to the council on Tuesday.
“One of the things that set the country apart from the rest of the world at its inception was the recognition of private property rights,” he said. “Inherent in the notion of private property is the ability of the owner to protect that private property from destruction.”
He said that destruction often comes from wildfires. He said Santa Ana winds often fuel wildfires. The pine tree, he said, sits in the defensible space area of the home and compromises their ability to defend themselves from an advancing fire.
“In what world does it make sense for a local government to force one of its citizens to keep his or her property in an unnecessarily dangerous condition?” Blanco asked.
Several city officials on Tuesday said the tree is not located in a high-fire area and is in no danger of catching fire.
Grant Blanco noted that the tree is native to an island between New Zealand and Australia, so it is in danger of freezing and dying in Santa Barbara if the temperatures fall below 40 degrees.
“Though extremely rare, there have been two instances in recorded history that the temperature in Santa Barbara has actually dropped to a frigid 20 degrees,” Blanco said.
He also said the tree has a fragile root system, making it prone to tipping over during strong wind events.
“Would you allow a 10-story building to be built on the foundation of a single-story home? Surely you wouldn’t, and that’s basically what this tree is,” he said.
He said the tree has no historical significance, and the only reason it is even there is because someone “like 65 years ago decided they didn’t want to look at their Christmas tree anymore and decided to plant it in the front yard.”
Karen Blanco, who grew up in Malibu and said she has lived through brush fires, was equally passionate about removing the tree.
“It might belong in a public park somewhere, but it doesn’t belong in the front yard,” she said. “This is a disaster waiting to happen.”
She and her husband are in their 60s and live in Orange County. In her appeal letter to the city to remove the tree, she said her 31-year-old son lives in the house.
Three people at the meeting spoke in support of keeping the tree.
Neighborhood activist Anna Marie Gott said that “the tree is beautiful. It helps us with our carbon emissions and wildlife.”
She said the whole debate was much ado about nothing.
“I think it is ridiculous that we’re here talking about destroying a tree and it is healthy,” Gott said.
Santa Barbara Councilwoman Kristen Sneddon agreed that trees are about more than beauty and looks. They are essential to the environment, she said, and removing this one would make no sense.
“I am actually not that interested in having people versus plants,” Sneddon said. “We are symbiotic and needed here; actually, we’re not as needed as the trees are.”
— Noozhawk staff writer Joshua Molina can be reached at jmolina@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.
