Ninety-five years ago, when San Luis Obispo photographer Frank Aston looked through his lens from the top of Terrace Hill, he saw a black-and-white panorama of a city with few trees.
By the time photographer Brian Lawler captured the same scene in 2021, Terrace Hill had shrunk by 60 feet and more trees dotted the SLO landscape, making it more verdant.
A side-by-side comparison of the two photos now hangs in the City Hall corridor. Across from it, in a small chamber, six volunteers who make up the SLO Tree Committee and the city arborist gather to discuss trees on the fourth Monday of every month.
Trees have grown in SLO since Aston immortalized the scenery in 1930 and so has involving community input.
SLO Mayor Erica Stewart is used to the ebb and flow of locals reaching out to her when a tree—or sometimes a whole host of them—is on the chopping block.
“This community cares about the trees. It’s because obviously the beauty of where we live, but it’s also about the climate,” said Stewart, one of two City Council liaisons to the Tree Committee. “When you see a large tree being taken down, it’s upsetting.”
It’s a delicate job for the city to balance the public’s interest and work toward a flourishing urban forest. Trees can be removed in SLO for plenty of reasons—their roots might snake through the ground and crack sidewalks and damage property, they might grow precariously close to homes and potentially injure people, or they might be removed to make way for new development.
“Sometimes, the health of the tree is not apparent,” Stewart said. “There might be a fungus and kind of [have an] almost corkish or Styrofoamish inside. … The other thing is when it’s people’s private property and they get to take down some trees to build something, then [others say] that’s not fair, … but it’s private property. As long as they’re not taking down a heritage tree and replacing the tree with the appropriate ratio.”
Still, several SLO residents have lots to complain about. Many are convinced the city, the arborist, and Tree Committee are approving tree removals at a rate that’s eating away at the canopy cover, and they allege the process for public input is opaque.
City officials, on the other hand, insist all the actions they’re taking toward the trees are the building blocks to achieve SLO’s never-ending goal of maintaining a strong and resilient urban forest.
Canopy conflict
Retired peach farmer Fitz Kelly is often the only attendee at Tree Committee meetings. He became a familiar face starting three years ago after he spotted signs on a big deodar cedar and a huge redwood during a walk around his Mitchell Park neighborhood.
“The owners were asking for permission to cut them down into firewood. I spoke up at the meeting and said, ‘These are beautiful trees, and there’s nothing wrong with them,'” he said. “The Tree Committee agreed with me. I think it’s the only time in my attending probably six or seven meetings where the committee said, ‘No, you cannot take [the trees] down.'”
A decade-long SLO resident, Kelly again voiced his concerns earlier this year when he noticed a magnolia and three carrotwoods in Mitchell Park slated for removal. This time, the arborist approved the removal request filed by the Public Works Department based on the roots damaging the sidewalks, and the trees came down.
“There are certain streets that have virtually no canopy. Islay is one of the streets. Islay and Leff are two streets, which would be in the Mitchell Park neighborhood,” he said. “Between Osos Street and maybe down as far as Nipomo [Street], virtually no trees there, if I’m remembering correctly.”
Kelly isn’t alone in his frustration.
In 2017, the City Council gave final approval to a housing development proposed on 71 Palomar Ave. for six new apartment buildings that could house 33 units. Fifty-five trees—oaks, eucalyptus, pines, and at least five other tree species—were slated to be cut down for the project.
SLO residents who coalesced into Friends of 71 Palomar fought back and slapped the city and the Los Angeles developer with a lawsuit. Residents lost the case, and the project resumed construction in 2019.
In 2022, the city and its Tree Committee faced public ire again when 100 new affordable housing units were set to replace buildings on Monterey Street, including Central Coast Brewing, and 54 redwoods.
One resident complained at the time that the developer’s agreement to replace trees on a 1:1 ratio wouldn’t compensate for the loss of mature trees.
It’s an issue Kelly’s concerned about, too.
“They take an enormous tree and replace it with a baby tree, right? That’s not replacing the canopy at all,” he said. “The baby trees just do not do the job of a mature tree. So, the temperature goes up because there isn’t as much shade.”
City Arborist Walter Gault refuted the claim that SLO’s tree canopy is suffering. Urban forestry is cyclical, he said, and a diverse city forest needs variation—sometimes, that can be two steps forward and one step back in terms of canopy.
“Does somebody have something against baby trees? We all got to start somewhere, right?” Gault said. “‘Baby trees’ is kind of a misunderstanding of what it takes to establish a strong, healthy tree that’s going to last for a long time and serve the community.”
Before speaking with New Times, Gault said he scanned the city from the top of the Community Development Department’s Palm Street parking garage.
“It’s a pretty good vantage point, and I see a lot of canopy,” he said. “The city started with no trees, and through the boom of the urban forestry movement, a lot of trees were planted.”
When it comes to planting, SLO taps into its lists of approved trees. Small planting spaces can be filled with 41 types of trees like peppermint trees, shoestring and blackwood acacias, and Hong Kong orchid trees. Carob trees, ghost gums, Chinese banyans, jacarandas, and 32 other species can occupy larger plots.
But sourcing replacement trees, which arrive from Northern and Southern California, is a challenge.
“We’re kind of a little more remote than some areas, and a lot of the nurseries that grow trees are far away, and so they often have to be shipped in,” Gault said. “We have a great resource here locally with Cal Poly. They have the Urban Forestry Ecosystem Institute, and they’ve done a lot of research throughout the state of California to identify the best climate-ready tree species.”
Log in the numbers
For nearly 43 years, SLO’s been a member of Tree City USA. The annual national recognition program celebrates community improvement and raises awareness about the value of community trees.
Having a tree advisory body of some kind is a requirement to be a Tree City USA member. Arroyo Grande has also been a Tree City USA member for 43 years. Morro Bay has held the title for 28 years. The pair were also recipients of the Growth Award—an appreciation of “outstanding tree care,” with Arroyo Grande receiving it in 1998 and 2005, and Morro Bay winning it in 2024.
“What we did last year is we invested a lot of time in making sure our trees survived,” Morro Bay Maintenance Manager Carlos Mendoza said. “We had a 100 percent tree survival rate last year, meaning that of all the trees we planted, none of them died.”
The trees survived because of collaboration between Morro Bay and a nonprofit called Morro Bay in Bloom, Mendoza added.
Arroyo Grande also collaborates with its In Bloom counterpart and benefits from tree plantings thanks to the efforts of beautification events like We Heart AG. Assistant City Manager Bill Robeson said that most tree removals in Arroyo Grande are a result of dying trees.
“During the last drought, many of our trees were stressed and did not fully recover in the years after,” he said. “Some trees have been removed due to potential hazard to life and property. Our goal is to replant when a tree is removed.”
In 2020, SLO removed 187 trees. In 2021, the city removed 232 trees. In 2022, the city removed 156. In 2023, the city removed 22.
No tree removal data exists after 2023 because the urban forestry program—and the tree committee with it—switched from the purview of the Public Works Department to Community Development.
“Public Works generally manages public property, Community Development regulates private property,” Community Development Director Timothea Tway said. “A majority of tree removal requests are from private property owners that want to remove trees, so for this reason, the move to Community Development makes sense.”
City Arborist Gault, who previously managed the urban forest of Santa Barbara, told New Times that the data tracking process changed because the role of the arborist changed as well.
“The arborist [in the Public Works Department] acted in somewhat of a field capacity in addition to doing administrative duties. That was found to be unsustainable,” Gault said. “This is the city responding to the need for greater attention to its urban forest. While there was an administrative position in Public Works that assisted with fielding phone calls, emails, and tracking data, I don’t have that kind of assistance in Community Development.”
Gault’s core responsibilities include processing and reviewing tree removal applications and reviewing planning applications and building permits for development.
City tree planting data—which doesn’t track trees placed on private property—showed that in 2022, 2023, and 2024, SLO planted 102, 173, and 140 trees, respectively. The city didn’t plant any trees in 2020 and 2021 because of COVID-19 protocols.
Once a tree removal application is approved, the city must carry out compensatory plantings to replace the lost tree.
According to city data, previous arborist Anthony Whipple approved removing most trees on “health” grounds.
“It’s because safety and ecological health come first and caring for our community forest,” Gault said. “Sometimes trees must be removed due to disease, structural instability, and now, wildfire risk is a new hazard.”
He added that all decisions about tree removals are made using professional arborist assessments and science-based best practices from the International Society of Arboriculture.
For Bishop Peak neighborhood resident Sydney Anthoni, the “health and hazard” umbrella doesn’t cover the Italian stone pine she eagerly wants removed.
The tree was a lot smaller when Anthoni’s husband bought their home in 1990, but now the trunk of the growing stone pine is so wide that it’s touching the outside wall of a city-maintained canal that runs through their property.
“If it gets any bigger, I’m just afraid it’s going to just cave in the wall to the creek,” Anthoni said. “It’s just posing a danger. … It could actually fall onto my garage.”
Estimates from a private arborist set removal costs between $5,000 to $6,000, and Anthoni said she can’t afford it. If approved by the arborist, a tree removal permit would cost $256.
Gault informed Anthoni that while he agrees retaining the tree wouldn’t be best for city infrastructure, the tree doesn’t qualify for a health and hazard tree removal application because it isn’t causing root damage.
He confirmed to New Times that Anthoni didn’t submit a convenience tree removal application.
“I don’t even want to go through that, because I don’t want to pay more money,” Anthoni said. “It’d be great if [the city] could kind of share, or like, take it out with their own city tree crew.”
Rooting out problems
SLO’s tree-keeping habits came under scrutiny in April when residents took their frustrations online.
“This beautiful Italian stone pine on Murray at Broad is too good for SLO,” resident Richard Schmidt wrote in an April 21 Nextdoor post. “So our green-bragging ‘tree city’ has granted permission to cut it down because an Orange County speculator wants to build an ADU [accessory dwelling unit] and doesn’t want to save the tree.”
Grieving another stone pine scheduled for removal on Rachel Court, Schmidt’s post claimed that he asked city staff for the number of trees cut down in SLO over the past 10 years.
“Guess what? Nobody at City Hall has kept count, so the number is officially unknown!” his post said. “The tree canopy of our city today is smaller than it was 25 years ago, but the city can’t even verify that with numbers.”
Data calculated by the Washington Post shows that SLO’s tree cover, at 16.5 percent, is up 1.2 percent over the last five years. Comparatively, the 13.8 percent tree cover of the Arroyo Grande-Grover Beach-Pismo Beach area is down 0.7 percent. Paso Robles’ 24 percent tree cover is the result of a 3.2 percent increase over five years, and Cambria’s tree cover of 40.9 percent comes after a 3.3 percent increase.
Schmidt, an architect, said he’s also an amateur botanist. He loves trees, he said, and is passionate about native varieties.
“This is how we prevent biological collapse by providing the trees that support the life systems that we have here—for example, a willow tree,” Schmidt said. “A lot of people regard willows as weeds, and they want to remove them around here.”
He pointed to the Washington, D.C., nonprofit Xerces Society of Invertebrate Conservation, which said willows provide crucial early season nectar for bees, food for caterpillars, and habitat for birds.
Schmidt added that instead of planting more native species, the city is planting what he calls “genetic junk,” like the arbutus marina or marina strawberry trees.
“They are exotic, they support 48 species of caterpillars as opposed to oaks, which support 275. It just seems to me we’re moving in the wrong direction with this particular tree regime,” he said. “I don’t know whether it’s the arborist, the Tree Committee, or who has decided we need to plant exotics, things that are not native, because supposedly they’re going to do better in global climate change.”
City-approved native varieties include coast live oaks, California laurels, California sycamores, Southern California black walnuts, and California holly toyons.
According to Gault, it’s all about planting the right tree at the right place.
“There are a lot of natives going in our open space and in our parks, but … through research that’s been done by Cal Poly and the Urban Forestry Ecosystem Institute, we found that it’s actually nonnatives that perform the best because the urban environment is so harsh,” he said. “There’s concrete, there’s pipes, there’s soil compaction, there’s a lot of factors trying to stop a tree from being successful.”
Currently, Cal Fire and Cal Poly hope to raise the state’s tree canopy by 10 percent by 2035. As part of that mission, the city and Cal Poly’s Urban Forest Ecosystems Institute are roping in volunteers to plant 10,000 trees in SLO.
As of Aug. 15, the institute’s website said 3,009 trees have been planted.
“The number of trees listed on the UFEI website includes some trees planted by the city and in some new developments as well as some trees planted by private property owners,” Gault said. “Unfortunately, it is not a comprehensive total at this time. City staff are working to update that number.”
Resident Tom Weinshenk, according to the city’s Arbor Day website, is the longest standing tree planter in SLO. Gault added that Weinshenk has been planting native coastal live oaks for 10 years. The local Rotary Club also committed itself to planting 1,000 trees in SLO County, with a focus on California live oaks.
Buchon Street resident Carla Cary had an oak tree close to her heart, too.
The roughly 40-foot oak stood on her neighboring property, she said, until the city removed it this spring because the branches were brushing the power lines.
“It shaded the street really nicely,” Cary said. “It was a lot cooler in our front yard because that tree provided shade for the whole stretch of the street. … I think there’s certain times of the day where we just won’t go outside and hang out, because it’s just too hot.”
While Gault said he couldn’t find a record of an oak tree removal at the address Cary provided, the arborist said there are times when utility wires and trees are incompatible.
Cary added that other familiar trees are missing in the Buchon area. She remembers a eucalyptus tree, which she said she heard was removed because its tall branches proved to be a “fire risk.”
“As SLO continues to grow and we’re developing plots of land more and more, there’s more ADUs being added, and there’s less space for wildlife,” Cary said. “I think us taking away those trees are just making it harder for a lot of other creatures other than us.”
She added that the “biggest heartbreak” for her is that the residing pigeons, woodpeckers, squirrels, and an owl left the area when the neighboring oak came down. The oak wasn’t replaced, according to Cary.
“I see the city and their woodchipper, and every time I see that woodchipper my heart drops because they’re going to cut down something else,” she said. “The oak was hanging over the street, and it was touching some power lines. But instead of trimming it back, they just cut the whole thing right at the trunk base.”
Growing forward
Cary has lived in SLO for 11 years, but her roots lie in Timioara, Romania. She thinks SLO can stand to take a leaf out of her home city’s book.
“They have what they call the green lung of the city,” she said. “They have this forest outside of the city limits where they just have acres and acres of trees to offset the omissions from what people use in the city.”
Cary, who didn’t know the local Tree Committee existed, also thinks the city can do a better job with communicating about tree-related issues. New Times reached out to Tree Committee members for comment but was referred to City Arborist Gault.
Mayor Stewart said the best way to be heard is to give public comment either in person during Tree Committee and City Council meetings or via email, before proposed removals are voted upon.
“As far as notices, we don’t usually make a decision, then chop the tree down tomorrow; that’s not how it works,” Stewart said. “There are times when people don’t realize something is changing in the community until it’s too late.”
Sometimes, the city green-lights tree removals when property owners apply for them.
That’s what happened on Leff Street, when Arbor First filed an application on behalf of property owner Victoria Square Owners’ Association to remove a magnolia tree in front of Browder Morrisey’s rental. The pathway to his front door has been taped off, and a red band around the tree trunk marked impending removal.
“In my day-to-day living, that tree is a huge part of it,” Morrisey said. “It goes up in front of my family room, … in front of my master bedroom. It gives great shade to my house all day long, it’s beautiful.”
Morrisey told New Times that the magnolia’s roots not only pushed up the front yard bricks but are also too close to his house. Morrisey added that the arborist called him about the tree removal, but he’s dissatisfied with the city’s response.
“He just essentially told me, ‘You can appeal it, but the decision’s already been made,’ and it’s most likely going to go through,” Morrisey said. “How about just cutting the 2-inch roots that’s causing the problem instead of the 100-foot-by-50-foot tree that’s been there for 50 years?”
Fresh malcontent is also brewing in another pocket of SLO.
The city is receiving a slow trickle of emails from disgruntled residents about a proposed project on Augusta Street.
“The entire neighborhood will suffer so that the two property owners can profit,” a resident who wished to be anonymous wrote to City Council members on Aug. 8. “I have spoken to the authorities at Sinsheimer Elementary, the Post-Acute facility, the administrators at Judson Terrace, and the captain at the fire station. Nobody thinks this is a good idea.”
Project applicants Frankie and Frank Ciano hope to build a 28-unit apartment, but locals worry that it’s been granted waivers that could exacerbate parking problems on an already busy street. The project plans to remove 27 trees to make way for the development.
The Architecture Review Commission’s Aug. 18 hearing on the project was postponed to an unconfirmed date.
Mayor Stewart told New Times that while she’s received a few letters about the project, the input isn’t as heated as correspondence she’s read about past tree removal projects.
“It’s hard because I too love all the trees we have here. I love that we’re not a stark urban place,” Mayor Stewart said. “I want to thank people for actually commenting. I know it feels frustrating that maybe the answers aren’t as quick or as clear. And when costs go up, it’s never fun.” Δ
Reach Staff Writer Bulbul Rajagopal at brajagopal@newtimesslo.com.
This article appears in Aug 21-31, 2025.