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Residents and Gary Oaks Coalition urge Lakewood to block paving near champion Garry oaks and wetlands
Summary
Public commenters at the June 15 meeting pressed council to stop allowed paving within the critical root zone of a 60-inch Garry oak in Woodbrook, called for conservation funding to protect the tree and wetland, and asked for clarification and apology over a council member's letter dismissing nearby schoolyard oaks as 'periphery.'
Dozens of residents and members of the Garry Oaks Coalition used the public-comment period at the June 15 Lakewood City Council meeting to press the city for stronger protections for mature Garry oaks and adjacent wetlands.
Speakers said a developer-led project in the Woodbrook area is proceeding under a Mitigated Determination of Non-Significance (MDNS) that they interpret as permitting paving up to 25% of the drip line of a large, roughly 60-inch Garry oak tree — a tree the coalition called a champion specimen. "That tree...is going to be fried from the vast expanse of concrete," Tomir Dunlop said, warning of heat-island effects and runoff into an adjacent wetland.
Christina Manetti, speaking for the Garry Oaks Coalition, asked the council to pursue conservation-futures funding or other options to permanently protect the wetland and the champion tree, and said city communications that described other oaks as "periphery" were scientifically and civically inappropriate. "The people who received that letter deserve a clarification and an apology," she said.
Other residents repeated concerns about the Daer Elementary oaks and argued the city's sidewalk and development decisions are contributing to irreversible losses of native trees and habitat. Speakers cited Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife guidance saying Garry oaks west of the Cascades are ecologically important and should not be removed except under limited stand-enhancement circumstances.
City staff did not immediately overturn the MDNS or announce regulatory changes at the meeting; council members asked staff to follow up and to provide clarification. Staff and council also discussed the limits of city authority and the separate processes that apply to shoreline mapping, zoning and development permits.
Next steps: council requested staff follow up on the MDNS details, the regulatory basis for any exception to protection of the critical root zone and options for conservation funding; no new policy was adopted at the June 15 meeting.
