PENSACOLA, Fla. — Pensacola residents are fighting back against the city’s plan to cut down heritage oak trees at the old Baptist hospital property.

Tree advocates say these towering oaks are a part of the city’s identity. Some of them are hundreds of years old.

Any day now, dozens of these giant heritage oak trees could disappear without a trace.

“Gone completely down to the stumps,” Alicia Trawick said. “They’ll never be able to grow back from what we understand.”

The City of Pensacola just approved a permit for Tri-State Tree Service to remove and prune trees at the old Baptist Hospital. Thirty-eight of them have been tagged with orange “X” marks.

“…basically slaughtering, destroying these beautiful trees that we have here, an entire grove of heritage oaks,” said Trawick.

According to public record, the Paces Foundation — a company that develops affordable senior housing — will be building a facility there called “Kupfrian Manor.”

“I understand and agree that we need public housing here,” said Kristen Brown-Sanders. “But we need both trees and housing.”

Brown-Sanders spent Sunday putting up signs, urging the city to spare the oaks.

“They can build on the east side of the property, but save this end for a park,” said Brown-Sanders. “These trees are not replaceable.”

Tree advocates, like Sanders and Trawick, are now asking for a compromise.

“There’s room for negotiation and we would like to ask them to pause on their plans so that we can reevaluate, come back to the table, negotiate and discuss ways that they can have their development here of senior affordable housing, which is so important and needed, but also preserve what we have here,” Trawick said. “You know, God gave us these beautiful trees hundreds of years ago, some of them. And why are we going to burn them to the ground in five minutes?”

WEA News reached out to Paces and the City of Pensacola to ask them about the project. Neither have responded, but here are some of the questions we wanted to ask:

How many of these trees will be fully removed, and how many will just be trimmed?Will you consider pausing the removals based on the public’s concerns?

Tree advocates will be protesting at Pensacola City Hall on Tuesday at 2:30 p.m. to try and save the heritage oaks they love.