June Casagrande
Look around. Between the asphalt roads and the glass and steel office
buildings, a forest grows. It grows because of and in defiance of nature.
It grows on terrain that, left to its own devices, would produce only
shrubs.
It's easy to take Newport Beach's trees for granted. Their beauty is
such a perfect complement to surrounding aesthetic wonders that their
presence seems natural. But the roughly 33,000 trees that make up Newport
Beach's urban forest are really the carefully nurtured outgrowth of
planning and care. They are Indian laurel fig trees, also known as ficus,
Mexican fan palms, Brazilian and California pepper trees, weeping figs,
lemon-scented gum trees and dozens of others.
"The urban creates a habitat for all life forms, not just humans. It
has a cooling effect on neighborhoods, and the aesthetic benefits are
obvious," said John Conway, the city's urban forester.
But one of the most important benefits of the city's urban forest,
Conway said, is the monetary value the trees create for the entire city:
The city-owned trees themselves are valued at about $63 million. And it's
estimated that trees increase the value of residential and commercial
property by as much as 20%.
"They're living organisms that are also a fixed asset of the city,"
said Marcelino Lomeli, maintenance superintendent for the city's park and
tree department, which oversees Conway's urban forestry program.
A lot of their work takes place outside the spotlight, but sometimes,
such as at the March 27 City Council meeting, trees can become a hot
topic. About a half-dozen people showed up to implore council members to
save the ficus trees slated for destruction on Main Street on the Balboa
Peninsula. The ficus trees, some officials argue, are just a bad breed.
They cause $50,000 to $100,000 a year in damage to city property, plus
the cost of about $285,500 paid to property owners in damage claims from
1998 to 2001.
They were planted because they're beautiful and fast growing, but
their legacy includes root-damaged sewage lines and torn-up sidewalks.
The ficus are also vulnerable to diseases that other breeds can resist.
Conway, a certified arborist who came to Newport Beach in 1993 after
working for the cities of San Bernardino and Fontana, oversees the health
of the city's trees. He also supervises trimming by contractor West Coast
Arborists, tree removal and tree planting. But the bulk of Conway's time
is spent working with the people he serves, for example, homeowners who
