Lake Oswego council rejects appeal of tree removal in Uplands

With a Lake Oswego resident having appealed the approval of a permit to remove 11 trees in the Uplands neighborhood to make way for a new home, the Lake Oswego City Council considered whether the developer, Renaissance Homes, had violated local code in its application.

The elected body unanimously determined it had not during a meeting Tuesday, Feb. 6 and therefore approved the application.

Renaissance Homes plans to build a single-family dwelling on Wembley Park Road and to remove 11 trees (nine for development and two for landscaping) in that process.

Resident Erin Williams appealed the city staff and Development Review Commission’s decisions to recommend approval of the application, saying that the neighborhood skyline would be impacted and that the developer did not do enough to alter the design to save trees.

“I’m not anti-development. I’m looking forward to welcoming our new neighbor to this wonderful neighborhood,” Williams said. “But when we see all these yellow flags going up on the trees and your 5-year-old asks ‘What are those yellow tags for?’ You explain that those are all the trees that are being proposed to be cut down. And he asks with tears in his eyes ‘Why would they want to cut down all those pretty trees and home for animals?’ I feel compelled to do something.”

Williams pointed to five trees that would purportedly impact the view from the neighborhood and Mayor Joe Buck agreed with the assertion that the skyline would be impacted. However, according to Lake Oswego code, if a tree pegged for removal is deemed significant (based on criteria like skyline impact and species), there has to be a reasonable alternative to site construction for the city to deny removal. In this case, city staff and council felt that there was not due to the location of the trees and constraints of the code. The city staff said that flipping the footprint of the dwelling is the only reasonable alternative, but would result in the cutting down of more trees. The property resides within a low-density residential zone and is constrained by criteria specific to the Uplands neighborhood.

“I don’t see a reasonable alternative to cutting them down,” Buck said.

Staff also asserted that there was enough surrounding foliage to retain the general quality of the skyline.