Keeping sight of the forest among the stumps
A new group aims to retain the shade
Jamaica Plain is one of Boston's leafiest neighborhoods, and the rustic atmosphere inspired Colonial bigwigs like John Hancock to build summer homes there. That bucolic feel won't last for long, says a new group called JP Trees, if developers keep clearing the big, shady oaks, elms, and maples that line the streets.
``I was spending a lot of energy getting really angry about all the new stumps around the new buildings and driveways, where there had been big shade trees," said Lauren Ockene , a JP Trees leader and a fourth-grade teacher in Brookline. ``So I wanted to do something other than just fume."
After forming last fall, JP Trees led a small planting drive in the spring and is planning a bigger campaign for the fall. Residents pay for each tree, and JP Trees plants it for free.
To learn the finer points of tree planting, JP Trees members recently took a tree walk with an expert from Boston College's Urban Ecology Institute.
At Jamaica Plain's annual Wake Up the Earth festival, Monica Briggs , a graphic designer, created big tombstones to memorialize trees that had been cleared.
``When you cut down a 50-year-old tree, it's very difficult to replace it, and it has a huge impact on the environment," she said. ``Trees provide shade, control erosion, and have a cooling impact. Kids play outside more when there are trees, and neighbors walk around and meet each other more."
A growing environmental justice movement in the nation's cities has pointed to a study of public housing developments in Chicago, which found that residents with trees near their homes reported fewer incidents of aggression. The leaders of the Greater Boston Urban Forest Inventory, an ambitious project that is cataloging all of the city's trees, plan to study the links between trees and the health and safety of residents. That is expected to lead to a push for more trees in low-income neighborhoods.
The less affluent parts of Jamaica Plain, like rapidly developing Hyde Square, are losing the most trees, Ockene said. On Jamaica Pond, though, Maple Hurst Builders kept old trees near its new Willowbank condos. Owner Chris DeSistl said preserving such trees can boost property values.
``Mature trees enhance what we do," he said. A treeless development can look like ``it was hit with Agent Orange, without a living thing in sight," he said. While preserving trees is often worth the trouble, contentious battles over housing leave many developers feeling ``so beat up from neighborhood discussions that the thought of talking about trees is overwhelming," he said.
Replacing trees that are cleared by new condos is a challenge, because all condo owners must agree to plant them, Ockene said. So JP Trees is studying the tree ordinances of cities like Cambridge and working with the JP Neighborhood Council on creating a tree preservation policy.
Instead of trying to save individual trees, a minimum number of trees could be set for neighborhoods, said Allison Nevitt of the council's Open Space committee. Developers who clear trees could contribute to a fund that would pay for planting trees elsewhere, she said. The council can ``speak for the neighborhood and say this is what we really want," but in the end, only a city policy would preserve trees, she said.
``By pursuing this," Nevitt said, ``maybe we'll inspire other neighborhoods to take up the issue." 