outspoken about the issue<\/a> for nearly two years.\u00a0<\/p>\n“It’s devastating… it’s devastating,” said Julie Tokashiki Skerritt, who lives near the property and has led a group of neighbors through a series of challenges with the city’s Department of Construction and Inspections.<\/p>\n
“It’s the natural beauty that all of us get for free just by walking, just by seeing everything here. We have so many walkers that come through this neighborhood, I think for the mere factor of beauty and nature. It’s important because I think all of these things do connect us. I’d love to be a friendly neighbor with this person too. I’m hoping we can build bridges, Skerritt said.<\/p>\n
The property owner, David Shearer, told KING 5 by phone that he loves the trees and agrees nobody wants any of them removed. But, he suggested it’s the unintended consequence of addressing another critical need: housing.<\/p>\n
Shearer plans to build a second home on the 17,000-square-foot property, which will require a retaining wall on the steep hill that splits the land.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The historic coastal redwood happens to be in the way, he said, adding that initial plans called for up to four trees being removed.<\/p>\n
“We’re not opposed to development and housing, but ideally we’d love for it to be smart and thoughtful,” said Skerritt.<\/p>\n
On Sunday, several neighbors are planning to gather near the property to address tree canopy concerns.<\/p>\n
“We just want people to come out and see what’s happening, probably not to save these trees because the city of Seattle has given them permission, but for future trees,” Skerritt said.<\/p>\n
The redwood is expected to be removed next week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The owner of the 17,000-square-foot property plans to build a second home, which will lead to the historic…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":304712,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[111,139,69,147,406],"class_list":["post-304711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304711","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=304711"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304711\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/304712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=304711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=304711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=304711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}