Neighbors Hoping To Save Trees Disappointed By Clear-Cutting Pines Had To Be Removed To Make Way For New Fred Meyer

A neighborhood’s efforts to preserve some of the towering pines on a North Side lot has toppled with the trees.

Fred Meyer is building a new store near the intersection of Highway 395 and Hastings Road.

Neighbors have been talking to store representatives for 18 months, hoping some of the mature trees on the densely wooded site would be saved.

“We value forests in our community,” said neighbor Lori Pfursich.

“In some counties, developers have to preserve trees. We were hoping it could be done here,” she said.

Instead, Pfursich was shocked to discover the site had been clear-cut three weeks before a planned meeting with a Fred Meyer representative.

Dave Husk, Fred Meyer site acquisition manager, said he understands the neighborhood’s concern with saving the trees.

“Because of the required grading and drainage swales, we don’t have a lot of control,” he said.

“In the end, we were not able to save any of the trees,” said Husk.

There are no county ordinances requiring native trees be left on a building site, unless it’s along a shoreline, animal habitat, or other critical area.

“Increasingly, people are feeling the need to preserve some nature as development becomes denser and denser,” said Wyn Birkenthal, county parks manager.

Mark Aronson, project manager from Taylor Engineering in Spokane, said it’s difficult to save pine trees.

“If you do any cutting around the roots, they die,” he said. “We had to raise and slope the site so water will drain away from the building.”

Aronson said the only way to preserve trees on the site would be to give up part of the parking area and set aside a wooded section that couldn’t be developed.

“The store and parking lot would have to be smaller,” he said.

He added that the parking lot will be landscaped, with islands for new trees and shrubs. Deciduous trees rather than pines will be planted.

“They’re better for cleanup and maintenance,” he said. “If you park your car under a pine tree, you’ll have sap dripping on it.”

Some of the original trees were left surrounding the property - a screen of trees on both sides, and almost four acres behind the store.

Pfursich is unimpressed.

“There’s such a scrape-and-build mentality in Spokane County,” she said.

“I’m real disappointed,” she added. “If this was Portland, they’d have to keep the trees. This isn’t a foreign concept for them.”

, DataTimes