Amy Steinfeld and Cameron Clark bought a dilapidated residence on Santa Barbara’s Westside in 2012 for about $500,000, and transformed the 19th century farmhouse into a stunning, Victorian-style showcase, where the giant yard has become a hangout for the neighborhood kids.

Steinfeld, a land-use attorney, and Clark, a web developer, also invested thousands of dollars into the landscaping of the two-story home, planting low-water-use plants, grasses and 10 trees, including a mission fig, mulberry, magnolia, guavas and citrus.

Indeed, the house at on the 1700 block of Gillespie Street, surrounded by a white picket fence, is a restoration and landscape paradise of sorts. 

But danger threatens this idyllic setting, in the form of a thick, tall, 70-year-old Queensland lacebark tree that lurks in the parkway next to the sidewalk, in front of their home. 

The tree stands about 35 feet tall, but it’s not the height of the tree that has the couple worried. The danger does not loom from above, but creeps from below.

The tree’s massive, hulking roots have lifted the concrete sidewalk about five inches, in parts, and created a hazard for anyone walking, biking or doing just about anything in front of their home. The tree’s power has also re-shaped and curved the fence.

“We’re tired of fighting a losing battle against this untamable tree,” Steinfeld and Clark wrote to the city. “While there are good reasons to keep it, the pros are vastly outweighed by the cons.”

The fate of the tree is now in the hands of the Santa Barbara City Council, which will vote at today’s meeting on whether to cut it down or leave it.

The city’s Parks and Recreation Commission has already denied the pair’s request to take the tree down. 

The married couple, who have a 4-year-old son, have offered to pay for the tree’s removal, and the replacement of six street trees in empty spots on Gillespie Street.

“At some point, we must cut our losses and invest in the next generation of street tree canopy,” they wrote in their appeal letter to the city. “Any honest and reasonable cost-benefit analysis would show that keeping this tree is a losing proposition.”

However, the city’s Parks and Recreation staff has another view:

The tree is healthy and structurally stable. It’s one of only 182 of its kind left in the city. It’s one of two species of trees currently designated for planting on the 1700 block of Gillespie Street, the other being a Chinese pistache.

“The species is pretty rare in town,” said Nathan Slack, the city’s urban forest superintendent. “It’s something that you just can’t find anymore. Even if you wanted to plant it somewhere else, it’s very difficult to find.”

He said there’s about 50 of the trees on Gillespie Street. 

“There’s rarer trees in town, but in terms of the uniqueness of the species, it’s pretty rare,” Slack said.

City officials believe the sidewalk next to the tree can be replaced without damaging the street. The streets division plans to repair the sidewalk in August and perform root pruning. It could also narrow the sidewalk to avoid the tree roots.

“We do think that using those strategies, we can preserve the health of the tree and fix the sidewalk,” Slack said. 

City officials also say that that the tree has developed a healthy canopy that would take “a significant number of years before it would be offset by new trees.”

City Council members Alejandra Gutierrez, Oscar Gutierrez, Kristen Sneddon and Mayor Cathy Murillo visited the site on Monday to get a look before Tuesday’s meeting. 

Oscar Gutierrez, who lives on the Westside, said he has a couple of the same type of tree in front of his house, and he’s fallen over a few times from the seed pods the Australian tree drops. 

“I get the concern of having trees like this in front of your house, but there are a lot of benefits to having these trees in terms of wildlife and cleaning the air,” Gutierrez said. 

Steinfeld told Noozhawk on Monday afternoon that the city would save money in the long run by removing the tree now. She said that the tree’s roots might be sprawling out quickly because it’s drinking the water from the couple’s low-water use and gray water landscaping systems installed as part of their water-efficient yard. 

Several neighbors support Steinfeld and Clark’s request, and have written letters backing removal of the tree.

Steinfeld said that her front yard is often home to hangouts and gatherings for neighborhood kids because there aren’t a lot of parks and open space on the Westside.

She believes that the city should remove the tree, not just for her, but for the Westside neighborhood.

“Anybody who walks down Gillespie, including many families on their way to Harding School or the Crosstown Shuttle stop, have for years been tripping over the hard seed pods or slipping on the decomposing flowers, while residents of Gillespie have spent an inordinate amount of time cleaning up the litter of leaves, flowers, and seed pods from the streets and sidewalks, their yards and parked vehicles,” Steinfeld said in her letter to the city.

“While some city residents and horticultural enthusiasts may admire these exotic trees, anybody who actually lives or walks on Gillespie will much more likely describe a love-hate relationship with this tree, as evidenced by the many letters of support we have received from our neighbors.”

— 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.