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Neil Milke urges Los Altos Hills to rewrite heritage-oak rules, citing canopy growth and wildfire risks
Summary
At the Emergency Preparedness & Resilience Committee meeting, Neil Milke argued that dense coast live–oak plantings have produced an unnatural canopy expansion and urged specific code changes — including raising the heritage-tree diameter threshold and narrowing protections to larger, well‑spaced trees to reduce wildfire risk.
Neil Milke, introduced to the Emergency Preparedness & Resilience Committee as the meeting’s presenter, told members that historical aerial photos and local documents show Los Altos Hills’ native landscape was a savanna-like mosaic rather than a dense woodland. He said modern planting practices and removal of recurring fire and grazing have produced a “coast live oak population explosion” with closely spaced, young trees that he called both unhealthy for trees and a wildfire concern. “We are in fact protecting a population explosion of problem baby trees,” Milke said, arguing that many trees now designated as ‘heritage’ are young and densely packed.
The presentation drew on archival images, quotes from past town newsletters and analysis Milke said shows the town canopy has increased “by a factor of two and a half since 1950.” He criticized what he described as municipal code language that privileges tree planting (for example, a commonly cited 5-to-1 replacement expectation) and urged the committee to consider regulatory changes focused on fire safety and tree health.
Milke offered several policy options for the committee and the Environmental Design and Planning Committee (EDPC) to consider: repeal the current heritage-oak ordinance; remove coast live oak from the list of automatically protected species; or raise the diameter threshold for heritage-tree designation above the current 12-inch standard (he and other members discussed thresholds such as 36–48 inches). He said he and a colleague will parse municipal code sections and return with specific proposed language for committee review.
Committee members pressed for concrete next steps. One member asked whether Milke could supply draft code amendments; Milke replied he would, saying the initial purpose of his talk was to correct what he called misconceptions so code reform could be addressed constructively. Several committee members stressed that any changes should be accompanied by resident education, Firewise outreach and, where possible, agreement with EDPC before referral to the Town Council.
The committee did not vote on any ordinance changes at the meeting. Members instructed staff to schedule a joint EDPC/EPRC discussion and to include specific code-change proposals at upcoming meetings.
