\u201cThey are about to cut these trees down,\u201d Moore said in the video. \u201cWe can\u2019t go for that. It\u2019s not happening.\u201d He said he walked along 7th Street and said he counted 72 trees set for removal. \u201cDo what you gotta do, internet,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The trees in question border a 5.8-acre BART-owned lot that was approved by the city for an extensive housing development in 2020. The project will replace 400 parking spaces<\/a> with more than 760 units of housing, a third of which, 240, will be affordable. The plan also includes 350,000 square feet of office and retail space.<\/p>\n Neighbors The Oaklandside spoke to said they felt blindsided by the developer of the Mandela Station Project and its proposal to remove dozens of trees near the West Oakland BART station in the coming weeks<\/a>. While residents such as Moore counted 72 red tags, documents the developer has filed with the city list 63 trees targeted for removal.<\/p>\n The developer, Mandela Station Partners, LLC,\u00a0 said that they\u2019d done extensive community outreach about their plans, dating back to 2014. Yet some neighbors told The Oaklandside they never received any notices about the project and found out about the planned tree removals only when they saw the red tags.<\/p>\n Now Jean Walsh, the city\u2019s public information officer, has told The Oaklandside the city has put review of the developer\u2019s tree permit application on hold in the wake of public outcry. The developer plans to submit a revised application and hold a community meeting, though no date has been finalized yet.<\/p>\n Walsh said in an email to The Oaklandside that the final number of trees removed may \u201cfluctuate a bit\u201d from what was in the original proposal.<\/p>\n The red tags are dated April 8, but several residents told The Oaklandside that the notices weren\u2019t put up until last Saturday, April 18.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI had heard of the project, but nothing about the trees, or any concrete information about it,\u201d Moore said. \u201cIt seems like it\u2019s going to be its own little city within West Oakland.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Moore\u2019s video quickly went viral, shared over 5,000 times and garnering close to 2,000 comments.<\/p>\n \u201cI live here, and I have a platform and a voice, so I am going to use it,\u201d Moore told The Oaklandside.<\/p>\n \u201c72 TREES!!!!! Nooooo!!!,\u201d read one comment by @westoaklandmuralproject, an account run by Jilchristina Vest, the owner of The Mural House, a home that serves as a museum honoring the women of the Black Panther Party that features a massive mural<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cAbout half of the trees are outside of the building footprint, and many of the trees are across the street nowhere near the development,\u201d commented another neighbor, the safe streets activist Bryan Culbertson. \u201cCan you develop a revised plan that saves the mature trees that don\u2019t need to be killed?\u201d he posted, tagging BART.\u00a0<\/p>\n BART\u2019s social media team responded to the post by saying, \u201cAs noted in the approved development plan: \u2018Landscape plan is designed to enhance the pedestrian public spaces, and to create a high quality of pedestrian experience and civic prominence. The existing trees will be replaced because of conflicts with the access plan. The new tree planting complements the overall landscape strategy of the 7th and 5th Street corridors to ensure a continuous, interesting and varied visual experience.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAll these people see the deeper meaning,\u201d Moore said. \u201cIt\u2019s not about the trees, it\u2019s about trying to resist gentrification.\u201d<\/p>\n Sick and healthy trees could be removed<\/p>\n According to a March 8 application for development review submitted by Mandela Station Partners and BART, the trees slated for removal are covered by Oakland\u2019s Protected Tree Ordinance<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n The ordinance states that permits are required to remove all trees of a certain size, with the exception of Monterey Pines and eucalyptus, which is an invasive species, citing the ways in which trees provide health benefits and also serve as wildlife habitat.<\/p>\n The disruption of nesting season is one of Vest\u2019s worries. According to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife<\/a>, bird nesting season runs from Feb. 1 to Aug. 15, a time when tree removal risks disrupting tree-nesting birds and BART has said that construction<\/a> is set to begin this summer.\u00a0<\/p>\n Among the specimens listed on the removal plan are 20 Chinese pistache (Pistacia chinensis), known for their vibrant fall colors and high heat and drought tolerance, and 24 tulip trees (Liriodendron tulipifera). According to the permit application, the Chinese pistache trees are \u201cstunned and exhibit little growth over 5 years since installation, likely due to insufficient soil volumes.\u201d The tulip trees, it says, are \u201cseverely stressed, many dead or dying, and signs of pest or disease problems. Two large Italian stone pines that grace the pedestrian access to BART are also listed. Although not sick or diseased, the application says these two trees \u201cconflict with development goals.\u201d<\/p>\n The September 2020 project renderings <\/a>include a new sewer main and undergrounding of the overhead power lines, which is why some trees outside of the building lot are slated for removal. It also includes 1.7 acres of green space. A landscape plan by the developer dated April 20, 2026, features trees such as Jelecote pines (Pinus patula), silver leak oaks (Quercus hypoleucoides), netleaf oaks (Quercus rugosa), as well as various shrubs and perennials including the Blue Flame agave, Spanish lavender (Lavandula stoechas), and creeping myoporum (Myoporum parvifolium).\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThere needs to be an environmental injunction,\u201d Vest said. \u201cYou\u2019re talking about taking down 72 natural habitats. In one of the Chinese pistache trees, I saw at least two nests. Is there somebody from the Audubon Society that is on this project that is okaying the removal of these trees and making sure that you\u2019re not removing any trees that have an active nest or eggs in them? I need an answer to that, because you\u2019re destroying an ecosystem of bugs, squirrels, birds, butterflies, and moths.\u201d<\/p>\n The Oaklandside spoke with Alan Dones, managing partner and chief executive officer of the Mandela Station Partners, about the concerns we heard from local residents about the tree removal plan.<\/p>\n He said by email that the company\u2019s landscape consultant has an arborist on staff. That team, he said, assessed the condition of the trees in advance of the permit application submitted to the city.<\/p>\n \u201cWhile the municipal code does not require a standalone arborist report, we understand the concerns that have been raised by the community,\u201d Dones added. \u201cIn response, our team is voluntarily taking an additional step to engage an independent, qualified arborist to conduct a more detailed assessment of the trees and provide a formal report.\u201d<\/p>\n Vest, the West Oakland resident, said she wasn\u2019t aware of the project until February and didn\u2019t recall receiving any notification about the community engagement meetings.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve lived here for 26 years. \u2026 I know everybody in the community in my four block radius,\u201d she said. \u201cThis is what is so egregious about what\u2019s happening, because San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit already devastated West Oakland in the \u201860s, and now they\u2019re doing it again.\u201d<\/p>\n From the 1930s to the 1950s, West Oakland was a Black cultural hub<\/a>. 7th Street was called the \u201cHarlem of the West\u201d for its booming jazz and blues music scene<\/a>. That all came crashing down with the construction of the Cypress Freeway between 1955 and 1957 \u2014 which collapsed following the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989 \u2014 and the bulldozing of homes and businesses to give way for a Post Office processing and distribution center and the West Oakland BART station.\u00a0<\/p>\n According to Dones, the group has been doing outreach to various community groups since 2014. Dones was born in Oakland and still has family ties in West Oakland<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cCommunity engagement is difficult and complex,\u201d he said. \u201cWe try to be as thorough and outreach as much as we can, but it\u2019s not a perfect process.\u201d<\/p>\n Dones said he feels strongly that he and the team have done the best they can to host a variety of meetings to present the plans for the complex, from in-person sessions to virtual community events.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cBut that doesn\u2019t mean we hit everybody,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd I can understand when somebody comes, they see red tags, which, by the way, red tags are important because that is, in and of itself, a notification to the community of what\u2019s happening. We\u2019re going to continue to be completely open to change, to adjusting and adopting to whatever we have to do.\u201d<\/p>\n Culbertson was one neighbor the developers reached. He said he first learned about the project in 2016 and recalled receiving postcards in the mail. He said he attended five meetings throughout the years, with the last one being in the fall of 2024.\u00a0<\/p>\n But Culbertson said that none of the meetings he attended addressed the tree removal plan. At the last one, he said, the developers mentioned trying to get approval to use BART\u2019s PG&E access to build an AI data center at the site \u2014 an idea neighbors who attended that meeting were not on board with.<\/p>\n Dones said that the team\u2019s work in this area is \u201cbroader than what would typically be described as either an \u2018AI center\u2019 or a traditional data center.\u201d The focus, he said, is on \u201cleveraging existing fiber infrastructure to help connect the community to emerging economic and technology opportunities, including efforts to help bridge the digital divide.\u201d<\/p>\n He and the team want to use the fiber optic infrastructure that runs through the BART station and along BART\u2019s 131-mile right-of-way.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cOur focus is not on a single concept, but on how to leverage that infrastructure in a way that benefits the community,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Culbertson said he learned of the tree removal plan the same day Moore\u2019s video went viral.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m glad that the city does require that the trees be red tagged,\u201d he said. \u201cOtherwise, the neighbors would have had no idea. We would have just woken up two weeks from now with all of the trees gone.\u201d Still, he said, none of the notices he saw linked to a map to show the total number of trees that would be removed.<\/p>\n Culbertson and Vest each said they emailed various city employees in charge of the project, as well as their councilmember Carroll Fife and the developers. He said that the only response he received was from Fife.\u00a0<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/oaklandside.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/IMG_2398-1600x1067.jpeg\")
The trees border a 5.8-acre BART-owned lot that was approved by the city for an extensive housing development in 2020. Credit: Azucena Rasilla\/The Oaklandside<\/p>\n![\"West](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/West-Oakland-BART-trees.jpg\")
The tags include a city number to call in case of questions or concerns. Credit: Azucena Rasilla\/The Oaklandside<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/oaklandside.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/IMG_2396-1600x1067.jpeg\")
Two large Italian stone pines that grace the pedestrian access to BART are also listed although they have not been tagged. Credit: Azucena Rasilla\/The Oaklandside<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/oaklandside.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Screenshot-2026-04-23-at-5.15.13-PM-1.jpeg\")
The tree removal plan, part of the developer\u2019s 2020 renderings, pinpoints the locations of all the trees on the developer\u2019s list that was submitted to the city. Credit: Credit: Mandela Station Partners, LLC\/Suda LLC<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/oaklandside.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/bart-tree-map-audit-1600x1295.png\")
A West Oakland resident put together his own audit of the rendering and walked around to photograph all the tags. Credit: courtesy of Bryan Culbertson<\/p>\n