Yesterday the Planning Commission looked at a bundle of proposed code amendments that seemed at first glance to be essentially technical fixes, and did not seem to merit a full post.
Maybe that was wrong. A closer look at the Staff Report for the proposed tree codes turned up an interesting letter from the Willamette University Oak tree project.
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| Trunk diameter not an index of age in Oaks |
As part of their Oak tree cookie project, students and faculty were able to plot diameter against tree age, and they found a very weak correlation, hardly one at all. Look at the scatter on those data!
The inference they draw is that since we can't tell how old they are, Oaks deserve a stronger blanket protection:
[All] Oregon white oaks [should] be added under the heritage tree definition as a new subsection, a heritage species, thus granting any tree of the species the same protections given to individually designated heritage trees.
That seems like overcorrection, and some compromise is needed. To designate all Oaks as "heritage" trees sounds good, but that could become a radical eco-NIMBY move to halt needed housing.
At the same time, like we have seen at the Meyer Farm, there would be ways to preserve stands of Oaks; and, instead of developing single detached housing, developing more middle housing types. Single housing on large lots is a wasteful approach to land use, and something about which we badly need to think more critically. Large parking lots for commercial or residential development in a suburban mode, all distant from useful things and utterly car-dependent, are also a problem.
Hopefully this analysis of diameter and tree age will be incorporated into our tree debate and we can figure out better ways to build more housing for people and fewer parking lots for cars, while also stewarding our trees and increasing total tree coverage.
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