The trees must go

The Village of Rockville Centre rustled up some trouble recently when it sent notices to residents requesting that they remove trees along roads that are going to be repaved.

About four miles of roadway are scheduled to be resurfaced in the coming months as part of the village’s annual roadwork program. The Department of Public Works left letters in the mailboxes of some residents along those stretches of road, informing them that the trees could pose problems and should be removed. But some of the trees are healthy, and residents are angry that the village is trying to force their removal.

“We were very upset about the implication in the letter that the trees had to be taken down,” said Andy Schofer, who lives on Devon Road. “The trees on the street are beautiful. It’s like there was no discussion about how we might be able to save them; it was just a fait accompli that they had to come down.”

Schofer said that his trees — two 40-foot-tall pin oaks — are healthy. Some of the other residents on his block say they are going to cut their trees down, while others want to keep them.

Public Works Supervisor Harry Weed said that the village is offering to take the trees down because it is concerned about residents’ safety. “We’ve had trees [so diseased and hollow that] you can stick a pencil into them,” he said. “In something like that, that’s a safety issue. I wouldn’t want something like that in front of my house.”

Weed explained that a licensed arborist will examine the trees on the roads where work is scheduled to be done. If the trees are diseased, the village will recommend cutting them down. In the case of Schofer’s trees, the roots are in an area that is going to be torn up and replaced, so the trees must come down. Weed called that necessity unfortunate, but explained that the village has to upgrade electricity and water infrastructure while repaving the roads.

“In a storm, when you get the high winds, the potential for those trees to blow over is a lot greater,” he said. “When they do blow over … if they go toward your house, by New York state law, we cannot go onto your property and take that tree off. If it’s out in the roadway, of course we do that.”