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Commissioner
Frank Drake pleaded for the 30-inch post
oak, saying it had survived Floyd, Fran,
Hazel, probably World War I, but the
Wake Forest Town Board voted 3 to 2
Tuesday night to allow Village Family
Care to cut it down to make way for
their new office in Heritage
Professional Park on Rogers Road. To
compensate for the old tree, the doctors
in the medical practice agreed to plant
24 trees in the area.
Mayor Vivian Jones said the
developers are willing to increase the
number of trees from the 10 recommended
by the planning board on a split 5 to 4
vote to 24. Those will include four
under-story trees (dogwoods, redbuds,
etc.) and 10 3-inch trees on the steep
bank behind the office park.
Commissioner Margaret
Stinnett, a staunch tree advocate who
voted with Drake not to cut down the
tree, asked James Edwards with Edwards
Associates Architects in Raleigh how he
would remove the large tree without
disturbing the slope. Edwards said there
would be minimum disturbance because the
tree, which stands on rock, has not sent
out finger roots down the slope.
Edwards’ investigation
coincides with the opinion of a
professional arborist, James R. McGraw
with Tree Connections in Cary. Dr.
Thomas Weber and Dr. Carson Rounds, the
principals in VFC Properties, which has
purchased the lot and will build the
office, hired McGraw to examine the
tree. His conclusion: “Based on the
location and type(s) of previous soil
disturbances which has occurred within
and adjacent to the dripline of the
canopy of this post oak, I cannot be
optimistic about the long term health of
this oak; therefore, I support your
proposed removal of this post oak.”
Drake argued that Edwards
and the doctors wanted to remove the
tree because it stands in the way of the
planned office building. A different
building configuration would allow the
tree to continue to live.
Edwards has designed an
8,000-square-foot building with four
projecting ells for the
12,000-square-foot lot. The building
will cover most of the lot.
“I, like you, believe the
building could be reconfigured to save
that tree,” Commissioner David Camacho
said to Drake, calling the tree “a very
prominent feature in that office park.”
But, Camacho continued,
“Much as I would like to see that tree
preserved, I would [much more] like to
see a working doctors’ office in that
site.” Camacho, a builder, said he had
tried to save trees. “Even if they are
saved, there is nothing to say they
won’t die later or fall on you.”
Camacho, Stinnett and
Edwards agreed on the steepness of the
slope behind the office site. “It drops
twenty feet in about ten feet,” Camacho
said.
“Those twenty-four trees are
going to help hold that soil together,”
Commissioner Velma Boyd-Lawson said. She
noted the tree was originally referred
to as having an 18-inch diameter when it
was first designated to be saved.
Stinnett said there had been
a lot of damage to the tree because of
earlier grading for the park left fill
dirt near the tree, which also has kudzu
up to the crown. “I think that they’re
trying to work with us by putting in the
additional trees. The tree is going to
suffer anyway.” |
