Dear Council Members,
I am writing to you today regarding a notice that I received last week regarding a "landscaping" proposal which stated that the City Arborist has given conditional approval for the removal of 258 heritage trees at the Sharon Heights Golf and Country Club. I live in a condo building in the middle of the golf course (not a member of the club), and those trees are necessary for a number of reasons.
1. They are heritage trees which the City has a duty to protect given its mission and goals.
2. Menlo Park is a tree city. We moved here and love it here because it is beautiful and because the City has taken great measures to preserve heritage trees.
2. These trees provide some privacy to the residents who live in the condos/townhomes here. If we wanted to stare at a golf course all the time, we would have chosen to live on the other side where there are no trees.
3. I see that MANY of the trees that line the drive from the gate to the residences (1100-1290 Sharon Park Dr) are tagged for removal. Very importantly, these trees provide us much needed safety from terrible golfers who drive golf balls into our community constantly.
These are just my familys experiences with unsafe conditions caused by the golf course:
* A golf ball came careening through my sons bedroom window smashing glass all over him. The window was 4 stories above ground level and the event was a terrifying safety issue. The Club agreed to replace the window, but their contractor couldnt do it for a few weeks, which is unacceptable. The only alternative I was given was to find an available contractor myself and have the Club then contract with that person. That is not taking responsibility for the problem.
* My car has been hit twice coming down Sharon Park Drive (between the gate and 1100), one hit my windshield and caused a small "dimple" in the glass, and one hit the body of the car.
* We walk around our community with our son and dog for exercise, and the golf balls are at least slowed down when they come through the trees.
* When we are at our community pool, golf balls constantly come up from the driving range over the current fence and come straight down into the pool and surrounding area which could cause a serious head injury if they hit someone. To give you some perspective on how often this occurs, you could walk around our community and find more than enough golf balls in the pool area and landscaping to go to the driving range. The Club has been aware of this problem for years but has refused to do anything about it until they get their "landscaping proposal" authorized by the City and begin work on the whole project. Again, not a responsible position to a constant safety issue.
For the safety of my family and other residents in this community, I do not want any trees removed that are between the course and our buildings because we need more safety than we currently have, not less.
4. Im feeling that there is differential treatment for the Club than for other businesses and residents in Menlo Park. There are residents who have had to construct their homes around a single heritage tree because they were not permitted to remove it by the City Arborist. But, the optics appear to be that the Club, which is a big business and revenue producer for the City, is being allowed (for the second time in 10 years) to remove a huge number of trees that dont appear to have been tagged for disease or safety concerns. Why have they already been given conditional approval to do this?
I hope that you will reach out to the Planning Department staff, the Planning Commission, or attend their Public Meeting (3/13/2023) to raise your concerns about this. We need to protect our heritage trees, and the City needs to be equitable in the way it makes determinations like this.
Kind Regards,
Jennifer Johnson
1100 Sharon Park Dr #26
Best,
Jennifer
Diversity without disability isnt diverse enough.
