Dear Councilperson,
With the winter winds hopefully over, I wanted to convey my deep concern about the continuing dangers facing our neighbors from overly tall fragile trees that are so common now. That they are given special protection by the existing heritage tree ordinance. Specifically that homeowners are not permitted to remove dangerous overgrown redwood trees when they pose such obvious risk to life and property.
We were fortunate that no trees near us fell, but like practically everyone, we were left with substantial clean-up for weeks. A house across the street with 9 redwoods dropped large branches on the street and on another neighbor’s house, and with the property vacant and on the market, we assumed the task of keeping the street free of its large branches. But I guess you are now hearing a lot of complaints about this tree problem. As well as the power outages that resulted.
But my complaint goes beyond this. My wife and I consider ourselves committed environmentalists. We are lifetime members of the Sierra Club, as well as of numerous other environmental groups. We have installed a photovoltaic system on our roof. We drive Teslas, for heaven’s sake, which we charge at home. We hug trees. We LOVE redwood trees. IN THEIR PLACE, their place being in their natural habitat, the coastal mountains, not within the limits of a dense city like Menlo Park.
We bought our house on Wallea Drive 32 years ago, SPECIFICALLY because it had a large elevation of south-facing glass, with only deciduous trees to our south. We added more south glass during a large renovation in 1992. Access to winter sunlight is of great importance to us. Typically in the winter we let the furnace bring the house up to 68 degrees first thing in the morning, and then at 9 o’clock shut it off for the rest of the day, and the low winter sun coming through the windows maintains that temperature all day, even with outside temperatures in the low 50’s. Since we both have always worked from home, we would have had to keep that furnace running all day, were it not for our solar access.
I did some heat balance studies on our home several years ago that suggested we were then saving between $500 and $600 (and a lot of natural gas) per year by NOT running the furnace all day. I’m sure now that would be closer to $1000. Ironically that’s about the same amount that our photovoltaic system saves us. But that cost us $20,000 and operates at only 22% efficiency. The energy from our windows is free and operates at 100%.
So many of our neighbors could also enjoy these energy and cost savings that passive solar provides, except for the shading caused in the winter by overly tall trees. In the winter a 150 foot tall tree casts a midday shadow for 300 feet. So a house may be shaded by trees several lots away.
I ask the city councilmembers, whom I consider to be fellow committed environmentalists, to join me in reducing our residents’ need to burn energy unnecessarily, by favoring solar access instead of favoring shading. And by making solar access a vital part of your plan for energy conservation in the town.
Sincerely,
David Hauk
1045 Wallea Drive
