OAK TREE PROTECTION PROPOSED 1980 ORDINANCE INADEQUATE, CRITICS SAY.

Byline: Kerry Cavanaugh Staff Writer

With up to 940 oaks facing the chain saw at Sunshine Canyon Landfill in Granada Hills, environmentalists and some city arborists say it's time to strengthen protection for the city's native oaks.

Critics of the 1980 oak ordinance say developers can too easily remove massive oak trees and replace them with spindly saplings that don't provide the same clean air, water quality and shade.

``A simple 15-gallon tree or two is not going to replace an 8-inch tree for 20 years minimum - and that's in the best case,'' said Andy Lipkis, president of TreePeople. ``Nobody is adding up the compiled impact of losing all these trees.''

As a result, the once-vast oak woodlands in the city's foothill communities are on the decline, a city tree task force said earlier this year and recommended measures to dramatically increase tree protections.

Current rules allow oaks to be cut for ``reasonable development.'' However, critics argue the city rarely finds development, whether an addition on a house or a new subdivision, unreasonable.

City urban foresters try to reduce the number of oaks felled for projects but they can't stop construction, said street tree superintendent Ron Lorenzen.

Now, anyone who wants to cut an 8-inch diameter oak on property one acre or larger must plant at least two young oaks for every one removed.

Stuck in the council's Planning and Land Use Committee, the proposed changes would:

--Require replacements for all oaks 2 inches in diameter and larger, no matter the lot size.

--Increase replacements to match the tree cut. For example a 20-inch oak could be replaced with 20 1-inch oaks.

--Require a permit to prune a protected oak.

--Increase the fines and add civil penalties for illegally cutting or pruning a protected oak.

--Protect three other native trees: the Western sycamore, California bay and Southern California black walnut, which tend to grow alongside oaks.

Thousand Oaks and Calabasas have similarly strict rules protecting oaks.

But some private arborists question the need for stronger rules in L.A., saying developers have planted thousands of young oak trees in the past two decades. The proposed rule changes will just increase already high housing prices and ensnare homeowners in bureaucracy when they want to trim or cut their oaks, they complain.

``I don't like it when a homeowner has to pay $400, $600, $1,200 before a chain saw is even turned on to prune an oak tree,'' said Robert Wallace, a consulting arborist who owns Tree Life Concern Inc. in Simi Valley. ``Trees become much more important than people and that's the danger I see when an ordinance becomes that restrictive.''

But others say the city must protect valuable ecological resources. Oaks support more than 5,000 wildlife and insect species and their root systems hold thousands of gallons of water.

``Property rights are not absolute. Oaks are public property. Wildlife is public property,'' said Travis Longcore, science director for The Urban Wildlands Group.

Kerry Cavanaugh, [phone]

kerry.cavanaugh(at)dailynews.com