Stumped

I went for a little jog around the neighborhood this morning, with the goal of seeing something that I hadn't seen before. What I found were condos, condos, everywhere. And where there are condos, there are stumps. I took picture of stumps at two of them, one near, Savier Gardens, at 2555 NW Savier St., and the other in front of Rainier Park Condominiums, at 2445 NW Lovejoy. There are a couple of things that these two different projects have in common: 1) both are redevelopment projects that add onto/remodel an existing building; 2) both have trees in their front planter strip that have been cut down; and 3) both have fire hydrants just a few feet away. I believe the urban forester requires that newly planted trees be sited at least 5 feet away from fire hydrants, so these trees may have been improperly sited in the first place.

The Savier condos have replanted the front planter strip nicely, except the stump still hanging out in front of their parking lot advertises to people like me what once was. A little sleuthing on PortlandMaps.com turned up an aerial photo from 2005 that showed several fully leafed-out street trees, and one very large tree in the courtyard.

The Rainier Park Condos are still under construction so the planter strip was a big mess. But I'm sure their permit requires them to replant at some point.

This got me thinking about the purpose of this blog. Capturing all pre- and post- development plantings seems somewhat nutty, especially for a one-person outfit like me. But it is no accident that there are stumps all around these development sites--and these are redevelopments, mind you, not scrape-and-clean new construction, a la The Vaux (More to come on this development at 24th and Savier). I can get pretty fired up about trees and especially disappearing trees, but it also occurs to me that policing whether developers/contractors are abiding by their permit requirements is more than I can take on.

So, after a bit of mulling, I think that a more simple goal of this blog is simply to document what has been lost, when I perceive it. And to document what is here today. I still am conjuring on the best way to be systematic about what I see.