New Haven Tree Project -- Bad for the Trees?

As new trees take root in ample plots of grass by the Westville cemetery, others down Route 63 are being “entombed” in concrete “coffins” that, in the eyes of one urban forester, will ensure their lives are nasty, brutish and short.

Chris Ozyck, greenspace manager for the Urban Resources Initiative (URI), made that appraisal during a recent trip down Whalley Avenue.

He started first by the Westville Cemetery, where URI put 40 new oaks and crabapples into the ground three weeks ago. Those trees are destined for long healthy lives, he said.

Ozyck then drove less than a mile down Whalley Avenue, where a contractor for the state Department of Transportation (DOT) has been busy putting in dozens of trees along the newly overhauled Route 63. Ozyck pointed out a wide variety of errors in both the design and execution of the tree-planting there. He said the young trees are destined for a brief, tortured existence thanks in part to a lack of soil volume, being planted too close together in rocky unforgiving soil, and being surrounded by stifling asphalt and concrete.

Delois Barnes, a transportation landscape designer with the DOT, said the trees will be fine and that they actually have more room for their roots than trees in other cities. Asked one by one about the concerns Ozyck named, she said they were unfounded.

Ozyck said the overall premise of the work on Route 63 is off base. It’s too focused on auto traffic, with little consideration for the needs of pedestrians walking on the street, like shade and greenery.

Such criticisms have been with the Route 63 project from the start. Several years ago, neighbors organized themselves in opposition to the plan. They sought traffic-calming measures and pedestrian improvements, but their efforts were largely unsuccessful. In one concession, a DOT official cited planned “extensive plantings” as a traffic-calming measure that will make the area more “visually appealing.” He made those comments at the outset of the work, two years ago.

Two years later, the “extensive plantings” seem to be little more than window dressing, Ozyck said. The trees that manage to survive will be stunted and scraggly, he predicted, doing little to cool the street or make it more attractive, he said.

On a sunny recent afternoon, Ozyck turned up at the Westville Cemetery wearing steel-toe boots, shorts, and a neon-green safety vest. His visit to Whalley Avenue began with a success story about the new trees planted there, by the organization he works for.

URI chose to plant oaks in the area. It’s “a good urban tree” that will be able to handle the pollution and sun exposure that comes with life next to a busy state road, Ozyck said. An oak living as a “street tree” will last over 100 years, he said.

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