‘Your property, your tree’: Gee, Ursula debate property rights after Lakewood saves 900-year-old oak tree from parking lot

A Lakewood hearing examiner recently ruled that a 900-year-old oak tree must be preserved after a developer wished to have it removed and replaced with a parking lot. The developer had also been assessed a nearly $240,000 penalty for removing roughly 70 trees from the site without a permit.

Meanwhile, in Edmonds, new regulations designated any tree with a trunk at least 30 inches across as a landmark tree, requiring city approval before its removal. Both stories raised a question KIRO hosts Gee Scott and Ursula Reutin couldn’t agree on: Do you actually own the trees on your property?

“My default is this: if you own the property, that’s your tree,” Gee said on “The Gee and Ursula Show” on KIRO Newsradio. “And now today, because we know what trees mean to the world and our oxygen, now we’re making city council come in and make amendments. Your property, your tree.”

Gee argued the government picks and chooses when tree removal is acceptable.

“When I first moved here, Issaquah was full of trees. Everywhere I looked, it was trees,” Gee said. “You know where a lot of those trees are? Cut down. And what did they get cut down for? Business development. So it’s almost one of those things where the government can pick and choose when they can cut down trees, but the property owners can’t.”

Ursula agreed to a point but pushed back on the idea that a 900-year-old tree should be treated like any other piece of property.

“Once you cut down one of those really old trees, you’re not going to get that back,” Ursula said. “You can plant other trees, but you’re not going to get a 900-year-old tree. If there is a way to work around not getting rid of a historically significant tree, I think you should try to work around that.”

She added that she’s personally navigating the issue in real time: a Japanese maple in front of her house is sending roots into her plumbing, and the repair will cost $15,000.

“What I said was, you better save the tree,” Ursula said. “If we remove that tree, that’s not the house that I bought. It’s going to look naked.”

Producer says one tree doesn’t matter, but every tree does

KIRO producer Andrew Lanier said the debate is bigger than any single property owner.

“It’s not a big deal if I cut down one tree on my property, and it might not be a big deal if you cut down one tree on your property,” Andrew said. “But if everybody cuts down a tree on their property, then that does become a real problem when it comes to tree cover, the heat, and everything.”

He compared it to voting or vaccination: individual choices that only matter in the aggregate.

Andrew also said if cities are going to regulate tree removal, they shouldn’t make homeowners pay thousands of dollars for private arborist assessments.

“Maybe there should be an arborist that’s available from the city who can come out in an expedited way to take a look,” Andrew said. “It shouldn’t cost every single person $5,000 when they have to try and make that call.”

Ursula read a listener text that summed up the tension.

“‘I’m all about your property, your choices, but we also live in communities, and when your choices affect your neighbors, that does need to be taken into consideration,'” Ursula said, quoting the listener. “‘The neighbors behind our house growing up got rid of all their trees, and it caused constant flooding in our garage.'”

Gee acknowledged the complexity but wouldn’t budge.

“I kept using the word ‘default.’ My default response is if you own the property, you own the tree,” Gee said. “Y’all can go ahead. I didn’t know this topic would fire people up. But I should’ve known considering where we’re at with animals and trees and whales.”

Watch the full discussion in the video above.

Listen to Gee and Ursula on “The Gee and Ursula Show” weekday mornings from 9 am to 12 pm on KIRO Newsradio.