Menlo Park EQC leaves staff approval intact for removal of 13 heritage trees at 68 Willow Road

The Menlo Park Environmental Quality Commission on Wednesday heard a challenge to staff's approval of a permit allowing removal of heritage trees at 68 Willow Road and, after two closely contested motions and public testimony, left the staff decision in place.

City arborist Jillian Keller told commissioners the permit review followed the city's checklist (application, arborist report, construction plans, mitigation plan and an alternative design and cost analysis). Keller said mitigation for the set of heritage trees was based on appraised values and that the sum of those appraised values is "about $472,000," with approximately $422,000 remaining as an in-lieu fee if on-site replacement cannot fully offset the loss. Keller described the city's financial infeasibility test for alternate designs: if an alternate design costs more than 140% of a tree's appraised value, preservation can be deemed financially infeasible.

The proposed redevelopment is a 50-unit townhome project, the applicant team said. Jeff Potts of SDG Architects described site constraints — fire access, underground utilities, required bioretention basins and the riparian buffer — and said the design prioritizes saving trees in the creek corridor while locating…