The City Planning Commission found them-selves spokesmen for the trees of Charlottesville at their September 13 meeting. First they expressed anger at a developer, David Turner, who cut down a 150-year-old beech tree he was supposed to preserve at 3 University Ave. “In my mind, this is an illegal act,” said Commissioner Craig Barton. Then the commission deferred a Habitat for Humanity project so that Habitat could alter their site plan in the interest of preserving several poplars on the property.
Those actions reminded C-VILLE of another tree advocate: The Lorax. So with apologies to Theodore Geisel, we’ve chosen to tell the tale in Seuss-ian fashion.
We, the Commission, we speak for the trees.
We’re tired and sick of developer’s disease
That causes the loss of too many a trunk
Of great big old beeches that fall, go kerplunk
When you cut to make way for parking garages.
Don’t bring us your site plan in dark camouflages
To disguise your designs on our harmless old poplars.
Please come back again, don’t make us go “Stop-lars,”
And prevent you from building affordable housing.
Just move back those units, don’t give us no grousing.
Keep canopies stretching ’cross Hanover Street
Providing shady cool spots for teenagers to meet
And old folks to greet.
We’re mad at that guy
Who promised to save (in the end just a lie)
A sacred old tree at University Ave
One hundred fifty years that Beech we
had had.
But no more! Alas! He cut it in haste.
For now, his construction is halted in waste.
Board of Zoning Appeals for now
must decide
If developer appeal is approved or denied.
Legal action we’d take if we knew that
we could
Though no court in this land that tree can make good.
Lost forever it is—but in the future no more!
Good hardwoods will stay, not turn
into floors.
We know that the City of C’ville will grow,
But don’t cut down that tree if it must not be so.
City Planning Commissioners are sad, much like this Lorax, over the disappearance of historic city trees.