West Hollywood's Green Space to Be Discussed

At  in West Hollywood Park Auditorium, West Hollywood residents said they wanted more green space in the city.

To give residents the chance to talk more about those green spaces, the West Hollywood Tree Preservation Society is holding a meeting in  at 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday. 

“The city is busy putting together a new General Plan to guide development, but they’re not focusing directly on the green space in the city,” said Angee Beckett, executive director of the West Hollywood Tree Preservation Society. “I think of this as what the city is doing with the General Plan, this is for the environmental impact of the Plan. This is for the trees.”

She’s calling upon everyone who cares about the city’s green environment—parks, community gardens, trees—to come share their ideas.

For Tuesday's meeting, the Tree Preservation Society plans to hold a general discussion of green space, then break into smaller groups to discuss specific issues.

Beckett and her fellow tree-lovers plan to take detailed notes and present them to the West Hollywood City Council for inclusion in the General Plan.

“It’s important [the City Council] knows how people feel about green space, where they want parks, where they want to see more trees,” said Beckett. “The green spaces are important to the health of the city.”

She noted that areas of a city—any city, not just West Hollywood— that appear blighted also tend to lack trees.

“The nicer areas of a town, the prettier ones, have trees,” said Beckett, a Weho resident since 1978. “Areas of a town that don’t have trees tend to have more graffiti and garbage. Trees really make a difference. Keeping the urban forest well has to do with how well we manage the trees." 

Heritage Tree Program

The 13-year-old West Hollywood Tree Preservation Society is responsible for getting the city to establish a Heritage Tree Program. Trees that meet certain criteria (native species, horticultural significance, historical significance or mature size) can be nominated for the program. The trees can be on public or private property.

“It’s not mandatory that a tree be put on the list,” said Beckett, adding that there are currently 176 trees in the city’s Heritage Tree Program. “But there are certain benefits if a tree is on the list.”

Those benefits include having the city watch over the tree and prune it every four years, she said. Additionally, if there are problems—a tree gets a disease, for example—the city will help deal with it.

Beckett pointed out that larger trees help clean the carbon in the air and sequester particulate matter.

“They’ve got to reach maturity before they can really do their job of cleaning the air. Baby trees can’t do that,” she said.  

Accidental activist

Beckett, who grew up in Sacramento, became a tree activist purely by accident.

One morning in the mid-1990s, she awoke to find men with chain saws beginning to cut down a large deodar cedar tree in the yard next door.

Still wearing a robe and nightgown, Beckett rushed outside and threw herself in front of the tree. The owner told her to move, but she refused. When the police came, she still refused to move.

“I had to protect that beautiful tree,” she says. “Up until that point, I had not been an activist. I had been a costumer in the film industry.”

She got the city involved and it initially stopped them from cutting the tree down. However, too much damage had already been done when they cut off the branches, so six weeks later, the tree was cut down completely.

“I made a promise to that tree,” Beckett said, “that I would do everything that I could do so this wouldn’t happen to other magnificent trees in the city.”