WEST ORANGE, NJ — A West Orange couple is lamenting the loss of approximately six trees on Hazel Avenue between Rollinson Street and Oak Ridge Road, which they say is the latest instance of the township “destroying” trees around the Valley district during the past decade.
The six trees in question were cut down as the township prepares to implement street improvements for that section of Hazel, according to township engineer and public works Director Leonard Lepore. In a July 1 phone interview, Lepore said that new curbing will be installed, new driveway aprons will be put down and some minor drainage work will be done before the road is milled and repaved with asphalt. He said John Linson, West Orange’s forester, determined that the trees should be removed so that the curb could be constructed.
But Leonard and Cynthia Farace, who live nearby, believe the township should not have been so quick to take down the trees in their area of town when so many have already been cut down. The Faraces said they have seen Valley Road and adjacent streets transform from a place rich with 100-year-old maples and oaks into something akin to Jersey City, due to its lack of greenery. And they want it to stop.
“They’re just going to make a wasteland out of the lower area of West Orange,” Leonard Farace told the West Orange Chronicle in a June 30 phone interview, estimating that at least 10 trees have been removed from his block alone. “It’s just heartbreaking to me.”
The Valley district is by no means completely devoid of trees. Walk down Valley Road or any of its side streets and one is bound to come into contact with several trees either on homeowners’ properties or by the roadsides. Some are obviously mature, their thick trunks giving way to an abundance of lush green leaves. Others are scrawnier, with thin trunks, fewer leaves and a short stature.
But there are also stretches of these streets where no trees are present, and it is the spread of these stretches that is bothering the Faraces. Leonard Farace stressed that he is no “tree freak,” but he has lived in the same Hazel Avenue home his entire life and has thus witnessed the elimination of trees that he still vividly recalls climbing as a boy. His only wish is for the township to become more sensitive to the beauty of trees and make more of an effort to salvage them whenever possible. For instance, he said the town could just cut roots instead of the entire tree if they were too close to any roadwork.
Otherwise, Leonard Farace said West Orange is sending the message that it does not care about trees or the residents who want to save them.
“They would put concrete over a 100-year-old tree,” Leonard Farace said. “There’s something wrong with that.”
But Lepore said West Orange does go out of its way to protect its trees. The public works director explained that whenever the township is about to embark on a street improvements project — which he said is one of the main reason trees are removed — it mails letters to all property owners and renters who live in the immediate vicinity informing them that a nearby tree is about to be cut down. The letter also lets them know that anyone with an objection can request that the tree be saved, prompting the town’s forester to meet with the concerned resident to discuss options on how to keep it.
Lepore said no one called regarding the trees that were just cut down on Hazel. But the township has addressed people’s concerns in the past. In fact, he said two residents recently called regarding another street project. In one case, he said the resident ended up deciding to let the town cut down the tree after meeting with the forester. The other resident insisted that the tree stay, so Lepore said the township will probably not touch the curb there to avoid endangering the tree.
And while residents such as the Faraces may feel that cutting down trees harms the beauty of a neighborhood, Lepore said it is the township’s job to make sure that its roads are safe for people to use.
“It’s a balance,” Lepore told the Chronicle. “There are certainly pluses to (street improvement projects) where the infrastructure got enhanced, and it got enhanced without any direct costs to the homeowners.”
As for why trees need to be cut down at all, Lepore said Linson only approves a removal for a street project if he feels that a tree will not survive nearby roadwork if left in place. He added that a tree may also be taken down if it is dead or dying, was planted in an inappropriate spot and is therefore causing problems or if it has something defective about it that would be hazardous to residents. In such cases, he said Linson explains to concerned residents why keeping a tree is not possible.
Regardless of the reason for a tree’s removal, Lepore said residents can always ask the township to plant a replacement. He did acknowledge, however, that the replacement tree would not necessarily be of the same species as the tree that was cut down. He said he did not know offhand the kinds of trees West Orange uses as replacements.
Linson did not respond to request for comment before press time July 5.
Yet the replacement trees do not satisfy Cynthia Farace, who told the Chronicle that they grow to the height of a “large shrub.” And she does not remember ever receiving a letter from the township regarding a pending tree removal, even when the trees in front of her house were removed a few years ago. In fact, she would often run outside whenever she saw trees being cut down and yell at the workers to stop, to no avail. She said she has not had any luck calling various township departments either.
If she had her way, Cynthia Farace said the township would realize how beneficial trees are to a community and stop cutting them down. She said places with an abundance of trees such as Montclair and even other areas of West Orange look much nicer than the Valley district.
“Now that the trees are cut down, the area looks completely different,” Cynthia Farace, who has lived in West Orange since 1979, said in a June 30 phone interview. “It doesn’t have a warm feeling to it anymore. There’s no character at all. It’s just houses in a row stuck together and a long strip of sidewalk that has no character either. Our friends in New York have more trees than we do.”
Lepore could not say exactly how many trees the township removes annually, saying it varies year to year, though he said trees are removed throughout West Orange — not just in the Valley district. He said the reason it might seem that the Valley has lost more recently is because the township has received grant funding to do street improvements in the area during the last several years, including projects that often require the removal of trees.
Lepore also did not know why the Faraces did not receive any letters when trees near them were removed. And though it has been several years since their trees were cut down, he said they and any other Valley residents can still ask for replacement trees by calling Linson or the town’s public works and engineering departments. He said the township does one to two replantings per year, but they generally only replant a tree upon request.
Experts agree that trees are beneficial to a community. According to the Arbor Day Foundation, a mature leafy tree produces enough oxygen in a season for 10 people to breathe in one year. Additionally, North Carolina State University reports that a tree can absorb up to 100 gallons of water a day and 48 pounds of carbon dioxide per year. The U.S. Forest Service also found that trees save more than 850 lives per year due to the air pollution it reduces, while the shade they provide can reduce air conditioning needs by 30 percent. Healthy, mature trees also add an average of 10 percent to nearby property values, per the service.
At the same time, Arbor Day Foundation spokesman Danny Cohn told the Chronicle that the foundation always leaves it up to individual townships to make their own decisions as to when cutting a tree down is appropriate.
Photos Courtesy of Leonard Farace
WO couple mourns tree loss on Valley roadways added by Sean Quinn on
View all posts by Sean Quinn →