Nearby Torrey pines on Melba

Four more trees in Encinitas will join the Melba Heritage Grove approved last year, and the developer of an adjacent housing project is uneasy about the expanding protected forest.

"Let's not let this complicate something that's been reviewed," owner Brian Staver told city planners last week, seeking assurance the grove designation won't interfere with construction.

Torrey Crest, a density bonus project of 30 single family homes on 6.6 acres, is not yet approved but a draft environmental report was released in April. The boundary line of the development lies at least 20 feet from the trunks of the four trees. However, a planned retaining wall along the property's edge may involve trimming some of the trees’ roots where they extend more than 20 feet from the trunks to the Torrey Crest property line.

Staver said he wanted "to avoid a situation where the city approves our construction plans as proposed but a third party appeals the decision on the basis of these trees' status as part of a heritage grove."

Bernard Minster's property

Since the housing project hasn't been heard by the commission, they declined to consider anything but the request by a neighboring property owner to bring additional trees into the group.

The city added the heritage grove definition to their tree ordinance last year at the request of neighbors along Melba Road. A heritage tree must be one of the oldest and largest of its species, of unique form, historically significant or a major feature of a neighborhood; an entire group of such trees can be protected as a grove. 

Fourteen trees were nominated in September, and five were approved. The new batch of 65-year-old Torrey Pines, located on the property of applicant Bernard Minster, is about 150 feet away.

"If you drive up Melba by the Bethlehem church you can actually see a grove," he said at an Urban Forest Advisory Committee meeting in March. The trees can be seen growing over the horizon and four of them are on Minster's land.

A planned retaining wall along the property's edge may involve trimming some of the trees’ roots.

There are others, including three on Brian Staver's property which, if the development is approved, will be on city right of way, he said. 

"The two trees in front of my house right by the intersection of Melba and Oceanic, which are very beautiful, they were planted by Brian’s father in the mid-1980s."

The tree with the owl in it, Staver added.

Committee members recommended the four pines become part of the heritage grove based on being a defining feature of the neighborhood.

Planning commissioners said designated heritage trees certainly would face additional scrutiny, a more lengthy process, before giving approval for any construction or development nearby.

Current state law prohibits cities from adding regulatory barriers that would delay new housing, so the designation won't affect the current proposal, they said.

It's protection for the future owner of the property, or if the project changes in some significant way and the developer has to refile, they would then be subject to heritage tree regulations.