Developer took down protected beech tree at 805 Wells Street; plan staff and commissioners call it a conditional-use violation

City planning staff informed the Plan Commission on Sept. 24 that a beech tree the city had worked to protect at the 805 Wells Street condominium development was removed without authorization, in violation of the project’s conditional-use permit. Staff said the developer’s tree contractor took the tree down after excavators began work a day early; the developer had hired a tree company to avoid such removals, but the site contractor proceeded and the tree was cut.