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Moved to Watch Status 2023
Kensington Pepper Trees
San Diego
Tall, stately California pepper trees with broad shade canopies add beauty and history to Kensington’s scenic streets. Planted c. 1910, they are as old as the community’s mostly Spanish Colonial Revival style homes and shops, and an integral part of its charismatic identity. In 2018, residents submitted a “Conserve-a-Tree” application for 37 remaining pepper trees to the City of San Diego under Council Policy 900-19, for registering and protecting heritage trees that are 50 years or older and have certain attributes and associations. Designated trees are eligible for special techniques for extending their lives.
But the city forester and the independent arborist the residents hired disagree on the trees’ soundness and longevity. In recent years, Kensington has seen at least six of these living, green giants destroyed. The city sent early-morning crews unannounced to reduce targeted, majestic trees to sawdust. The crews succeeded in felling a few, until residents, led by activist Maggie McCann, organized and stood with surviving trees for hours over several days, attracting reporters and TV cameras.
Meanwhile, the trees’ 114-year-old canopies are naturally combatting global warming, a city Climate Action Plan goal, and a benefit not found in the city’s young replacement trees. Kensington’s McCann and Celia Conover sued the city over the tree removals, their languishing “Conserve-a-Tree” application and the related, also ignored, policy on heritage trees. Unfortunately, they lost the case in June 2022, when a judge ruled the tree policy an “unfunded mandate.”
Since then, neither the City Council nor the mayor has done anything to codify CP900-19 into an enforceable ordinance, nor to create a dedicated funding stream for heritage trees. However, the city continues to cite CP900-19 as the foundation of its Climate Action Plan. Kensington preservationists remain vigilant, on-site tree protectors and advocates for upgrading that “mandate” into an ordinance with teeth and for eliminating hypocrisy from the Climate Action Plan.
Most recent eNews article (March/April 2023) Kensington's Historic Trees Under Threat
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2024
Continued and still threatened
Moved to watch status
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