By David M. Greenwald
Davis, CA – The issue of adding photovoltaic carport installations often runs into conflict with the desire to at the same time preserve existing trees and tree cover. Last week the Davis Planning Commission held a public hearing on a photovoltaic carport project associated with Phase II of the Sutter Hospital project and approved the project on a 6-1 vote.
The project calls for improvements to the Sutter Davis campus, originally approved back in 2019, which includes the addition of more medical and birthing rooms but also green energy initiatives (parking lot photovoltaics).
According to city staff, the first phase was approved by staff as part of an administrative approval process and Sutter is said to be fully mitigating for the Phase I tree removal with a number of onsite tree plantings.
However, during the second phase, there are a number of issues that have arisen. For one thing, the Tree Ordinance update was underway which includes a key discussion on addressing the conflict between existing parking lot trees and photovoltaic carport installations.
Based on this, staff elevated the approvals for Phase II to the Planning Commission to allow for broader outreach and discussion.
These plans have generated controversy among some in the community. Alan Hirsch in public comments last week complained that the Phase 1, which was administratively approved, did not give adequate public notice to the removal of 142 trees. While these trees have not been cut yet, he points out that this phase would cut over 60 more trees.
He argued last week, “You cannot waive the 50 percent parking tree shade (requirement) in the current ordinance.”
Alan Hirsch in a phone interview with the Vanguard on Tuesday, noted that this was not only an issue about trees but about city process.
“This is not about the trees,” he said. “This is about city process.”
He added, “I find it absurd farcical that basically that if I wanted a tree removed from my front yard, protect the tree, I would have to go through a city council, a public hearing for the city, for the tree commission, but Sutter hospital can remove for 205 trees and Sherri Metzker (City Planner) can say the tree commission has nothing to add or input on the process.”
He charged, “This was a conscious decision by the staff not to inform the tree commission or the public.”
Hirsch said he believes that this should be a council decision, not the city staff, and “I find this makes me distrust the entire city process.”
From a policy standpoint, Alan Hirsch told the Vanguard he believes this proposal can be improved considerably.
“I think they can save more of the trees,” he said. “I think some of the solar panels should have been put on the roof. Staff never inquired about that.”
According to Hirsch, Sutter Hospital believes that would be unfeasible.
“That means it costs too much money,” he said. “It’s about money. It’s not about energy, because if it was about energy they would put it on the roof regardless of the cost. We want to save money, we want to do it as cheaply as possible.”
He also believes that Sutter could reduce the conflict between trees and solar panels dramatically. He noted that one of the mitigations is to take the trees and plant in them in a new grove in the back of the hospital.
“Where that grove is,” he argues, “They could solar panels.”
He acknowledged that is a tiny area compared to the parking lot, but argued “they could put solar panels back there and leave some of the trees around the buildings in the front of the buildings, but they’re not considering that.”
At last week’s commission meeting, Chair Cheryl Essex while thankful for the project, noted that she was worried about the precedent of removing 200 trees for solar panels.
She noted like Alan Hirsch there were places that solar panels could be placed on the property “that would have a lot less impact in those locations than by removing mature trees.”
The Planning Commission did approve the project, but a commissioner proposed a condition of approval to require Sutter Hospital to transplant 43 mature parking lot trees.
Concerns were expressed that transplanting is complex and costly.
Ultimately the Planning Commission voted to approve the project with the condition that 43 mature trees be transplanted attached to it.
Cheryl Essex noted, “There are a lot of benefits that trees can provide that solar panels cannot provide, especially the improvement to human health.”
She added, “Removing over 200 trees which is the proposal, is a really poor substitute aesthetically.”
In a separate comment to the Vanguard, Essex said “removing mature trees makes the effects of climate change worse in both the short and long term. I strongly support solar energy but these won’t provide the shade that mature trees will.”
Should the Tree Commission have been involved in the process? Clearly it seems, when you talk about a tree removal process of 200 trees, it would seem logical to include the Tree Commission in the decision making. Particularly, as one person pointed out, Bretton Woods also removed over 250 trees, so nearly 500 trees will have been removed in a small area in the last year.
Two commissioners wanted to involve the Tree Commission in this decision.
Steve Streeter, following comments by Emily Shandy, wanted to delay consideration of the project, “to get the tree commission involved in this.”
Streeter noted, “The absence of direction from the Tree Commission is something that we don’t have.”
Sheri Metzger shut it down interjecting, “I’m sorry to interrupt at this point, but I want to make sure that I noted that the tree commission doesn’t really have a role in this particular process. The trees are not under consideration. What’s under consideration here is the solar panels. I don’t know why we could go to them, I don’t know what we would ask them for, so if we need their feedback, I’m kind of puzzled as to what it would be for.”
Colin Walsh, who chairs the Tree Commission, also personally expressed concern about the removal being approved by staff without any public process.
“There is good reason citizens are upset by this lack of public process,” he told the Vanguard.
While there were many voices arguing that this should go before the Tree Commission, others pointed out that there is no clear language requiring the city to do so in cases like this.
That is something that probably needs to be cleaned up as the city looks to revise the tree ordinance.
“What happened here points to a need to better define the process for large scale tree removal and other projects,” Walsh told the Vanguard. “The the tree commission is attempting to address this in the revised tree ordinance which is the main focus of our work so far this year.”
He said his hope is to work with the council in order to better define the criteria that would trigger review by the commission.
“The current suggestion is any project that is over 5 acres, involves over 20 trees or 1 landmark tree, should come before the Tree Commission for review and recommendation,” he added.
Councilmember Will Arnold, who is liaison to the Tree Commission for the City Council, declined comment on this issue likely to come before the council.
Assistant City Manager Ashley Feeney told the Vanguard that “Sutter Hospital was prepared to fully mitigate under the existing Tree Ordinance for tree removal by maximizing onsite tree plantings and to pay the full mitigation fees for the balance that could not be mitigated through onsite plantings.”
He said that staff hopes that there can be a that comes out of the City Council appointed subcommittee (representatives from the Tree Commission and Natural Resources Commission) that “provides a reasonable approach to tree mitigation to encourage these types of photovoltaic carport installations in private parking lots while still maintaining a reasonable amount of strategically preserved canopy that does not interfere with solar production.”
He said, “Clear policies that provide a balanced approach to tree mitigation allowing for cost-effective photovoltaic installations in private parking lots will be helpful to address tree and photovoltaic conflicts. Incentivizing photovoltaics and a robust urban forest are both important tools to help address the City’s ambitious carbon neutrality goals.”
In the meantime, Alan Hirsch is a bit despondent. He often refers to himself as the Lorax—the fictional character in Dr. Seuss environmental satire who speaks for the trees, who have no other voice.
But, as Hirsch pointed out, the story does not end well for either the Lorax or the environment.
Hirsch said, “If you remember the story of the Lorax, nobody listens to him and all the trees are cut down. It’s a tragedy. And that’s what I’m feeling right now. What’s the point?”
The parties have until July 26 to appeal. Alan Hirsch in an email told the Vanguard he intends to do so. Sutter Hospital, according to city staff, has not yet appealed the decision, but is expected from some quarters to do so as well.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
I received a call from a concerned citizen on this issue, and the explanation of the issue and the process concerns raised a red flag for me.
I personally believe this whole issue could be avoided if we hadc more commitment to regional-level planning … with active participation from the City, Yolo County, DJUSD, and UCD. If we planned renewable energy deployment across those four jurisdictions, we wouldn’t be forced to shoe-horn in suboptimal solutions like the one being proposed here at Sutter. Yolo County has a robust solar farm just off Mace Blvd next to Grasslands Park, which has been supplying 100% of the County’s own operational electrical needs for 10 years.
One alternative option that Sutter Health and the City of Davis could be considering is to collaborate with Yolo County to expand the capacity of their Grasslands Park facility to cover Sutter Health’s electrical needs. That would mean Sutter does not have to destroy any trees in order to go fully renewable in its Davis facilities. I strongly believe that is an alternative that Sutter, the City and the County should actively consider/pursue.
In my view you are going too far with this push for regional level planning. The problem here is very simple and it’s Davis-based. It makes sense to have the Tree Commission review the removal of 200 trees. The ordinance however doesn’t require them to. The city had the discretion to do it or not and chose not to. They can fix the ordinance for the future. Colin Walsh has pretty reasonable recommendations on that. I don’t see this as needing regional planning. It’s a local issue.
I opine, he does not… the original city requirement was to shade parking lots… trees were used to do that… sort of… in small planers they never had a chance of developing a canopy tht would meet the 50% shading requirement… it was a joke…
Solar panels shade much more of the parking areas, compared to trees planted @ Marketplace, Oak Tree Plaza, Oakshade Commons, etc.
And where were the ‘Druids’ when DJUSD cut down nearly all the trees at the DHS parking lot to create solar panel arrays?
The “Tree Commission” was created as the “Street Tree Commission”… talk about ‘scope creep’ or ’empire building’.
Sure glad Mr Walsh is not on CC… although I had no say in the matter due to the ‘district’ thingy…
Turning to Grasslands as a source eliminates one of the benefits of having the panels installed locally next to a major load center. Avoiding use of the distribution lines is an important cost savings. Using County power isn’t a preferable option.
That said, regional planning to integrate community scale local power into the overall grid is a good idea. This is one of the reasons why Valley Clean Energy was created. That agency should be at the center of this discussion and coordinating these agencies.
DJUSD also is planning a set of solar project installations that should be coordinated regionally for the same reason.
Richard, the land immediately adjacent to Sutter Davis is the City-owned water tower parcel, which could be an alternative site without the trees issue. Is that a viable alternative worth exploring?
The City should disband the Tree Commission. The amateur arborists on the Planning Commission make the TC redundant.
Solar panels are the greatest threat to our urban tree canopy of this generation, at least in our region (emerald ash borer poses a greater threat back east, and sudden oak death in the coastal areas of Northern California).
This is going to come up again and again. At a recent Tree Davis board meeting we were happy to see our annual report with the numbers of trees our arborists and volunteers had planted in 2020. And then you add up the trees being removed by UCD, the school district, and now Sutter and that nearly wipes out the whole gain we achieved.
I don’t have the city’s tree planting numbers, but the combination of all those removals along with the Bretton Woods removals last year indicates we have, again, lost ground in terms of the numbers of trees in our urban forest. And that doesn’t even account for the loss of decades of growth and development of the trees in question, it just is the sheer numbers of removals vs plantings. We’re losing ground.
Solar panels do not belong in parking lots. They belong on rooftops. Trees belong in parking lots. If there is a conflict between solar panels and trees, the trees should have priority. Their benefits go way beyond the electricity generation value of the panels.
I fully agree with Colin Walsh on this topic and I am glad to see he is chair of the Tree Commission. I personally believe the tree ordinance needs to be strengthened to assert the primacy of trees in these conflicts. The tree commission should have been involved in this issue in their advisory role to the council. I appreciate Alan H and Colin and others bringing this to the public’s attention.
My opinion is that transplanting those mature trees will not be cost-effective and should not be a condition of this project — the project should instead be rejected if it is going to lead to this much tree removal. Site the panels elsewhere. And we need to make this clear going forward, so that staff doesn’t give these types of projects a pass. The comment — “The trees are not under consideration. What’s under consideration here is the solar panels.” — is the problem. This is not staff’s fault. It’s a policy issue that the council needs to address.
DS,
Isn’t it also voluntary self-planting (naturally occurring trees) and tree deaths?
If a parking lot were ‘new’ (assuming trees weren’t removed), couldn’t the solar panels be on car shade structures, and shorter species planted that would not block the sun for the panels, but still shade the ground?
Clearly though, removing trees isn’t a wise policy.
“He often refers to himself as the Lorax—the fictional character in Dr. Seuss environmental satire…”
I’ve never thought of the Lorax as satire. Maybe a parable but more of a cautionary tale.
Maybe Hirsh claiming to be the Lorax is satire?
It would be interesting to do a carbon budget for trees vs photovoltaics in parking lots.
Parking lots are a perfect place for solar panels. Perhaps the best place of all, as they perform “double duty” (shade, and energy).
Rooftop panels are more difficult to access, install and maintain (and can create problems for the roofs, themselves). They also provide nesting spots for pigeons, unless pigeon-proofed.
Solar panels in parking lots generally provide more shade than trees, and do so immediately (rather than decades in the future). And they do so without dropping branches and leave on trees on cars and in the lots, or cracking the pavement with roots.
However, solar panels don’t last forever.
Generally agree, if mature trees are there “first”. As in this case, and at DJUSD.
Agree with Colin and greatly appreciate Don’s analysis. This local conflict is only the tip of a huge iceberg. The “green new deal” proponents and politicians trying to gain environmental credits through unrealistic proclamations of zero emissions are eventually going to have to face the negative consequences of their actions. They seem to have forgotten (or merely ignore) the fact that for every action, there is a reaction.
In order to supply our ever-growing electrical needs, huge (actually unfathomable) numbers of solar panels and wind turbines would need to be employed. I agree that the panels should be on rooftops, but I don’t know whether there are enough rooftops to meet our overall needs. I do know that panels are being proposed for and sited on vast swaths of acreage, destroying all flora and fauna on that land.
And wind turbines are gigantic killing machines for birds, especially our dwindling numbers of raptors. From the standpoint of those majestic, beneficial predators and scavengers, it must seem that “if the turbines don’t get ‘us, tearing out trees for solar panels will!”
Come to think of it, how can the very same City staff and elected officials, who make it nearly impossible for residents to remove diseased, dangerous or wrongly-sited trees from their properties, approve the removal of hundreds of trees by moneyed interests such as Sutter and developers without public discussion? These conflicts need to be addressed by the public – in the public eye.
Amen Amen brother Entrikin. From your keyboard to God’s ears.
Wow, I so strongly agree with every one of your above paragraphs I won’t even comment. You are so right about all of it! “Clean” energy is also ‘dirty’, and infused with corruption, greed and graft.
Tear down 100’s of trees that produce CO2, in order to create energy that reduces CO2, and then ‘mitigate’ the damage by planting trees? You’ve got to be yankin’ me.
As you said . . . . . 😐
‘Mitigation’ is largely a BS term. Like with the tree ‘mitigation’ here . . .
Another solar panel ‘mitigation’ is in the desert such as at BrightSource near Primm but many others, they ‘mitigate’ the damage to desert tortoises by ‘moving’ them to new locations. But half of them die from the trauma. That ain’t mitigation in my book, it’s SHAME.
“….and sudden oak death in the coastal areas of Northern California).”
Sudden oak death is not an urban canopy issue.
“The “green new deal” proponents and politicians trying to gain environmental credits through unrealistic proclamations of zero emissions are eventually going to have to face the negative consequences of their actions.”
So will the global warming deniers. Extremes in most things lead to unintended consequences.
This is a good discussion. I was very glad to read Don’s comments, since I had similar ones brewing as I read about this situation.
While I’m proud of our state’s commitment to clean energy production, and pleased that the CA Energy Code and Building Codes continue to make inclusion of PV arrays standard practice for new construction, it’s clear that the standards will pit solar arrays against existing trees over and over again. It is and will be an issue for Planning Commissions and other regional regulatory bodies to grapple with again and again into the future.
Furthermore, our regulatory commissions will be faced with applicants who claim rooftop PV is financially “infeasible” without the ability to really assess the financial hardship. Applicants will most often choose to create new standalone structures, especially when PPAs are considered outside the scope of a building project; it’s “cleaner” for them to keep these scopes separate. However, it’s not often the best holistic decision for a site.
This inherent conflict is happening at many of our corporate and non-profit institutions, it’s happening in the decisions the DJUSD is making for all our school campuses, and it’s happening at the County level as our Planning Commission is faced with potential placement of large-scale PV arrays on agricultural land.
Consider the embodied energy of hundreds of existing trees. Imagine how the trees were transported to a site, planted, maintained. The irrigation was designed, set up, improved. Large quantities of water were used to create a burgeoning canopy for habitat, O2 production and CO2 mitigation. Now, imagine the energy needed to transplant those large trees and make sure they don’t die — far greater amounts of water are needed for this process than for maintaining them in place. Statistically, many will die anyway. Transplanting the existing trees is folly. Now, add the embodied carbon and energy of a new steel structure in the parking lot, complete with concrete footings.
How much PV energy would need to come from the parking lot PV array to offset the above-mentioned losses?
Alan Hirsh is apparently not the only Lorax in town… I’m feeling Loraxier and Loraxier as I confront this problem repeatedly. It is up to us to steward our sites through the code-mandated clean energy production decisions they will need to make. More often than not, PV belongs on the roof where the panels can cut the solar gain on the building and reduce the air conditioning loads inside.
Elisabeth Dubin
Moving mature trees seems to be about the same level of difficulty and expense as moving a house. (Slight exaggeration to make the point.) 🙂
I’ve wondered about that as well. Then again, they are less accessible on roofs, and may create problems for the roofs themselves. (Not to mention the fact that most roofs need replacing/fixing, at which point the panels will have to be “dealt with”. Not to mention maintaining/cleaning the panels and eventually replacing them.)
And if they’re going on existing roofs, that can create more problems.
Decided to see what I can find, regarding problems with solar panels on roofs. This info is from a roofing company.
https://www.feldcoroofing.com/common-roof-solar-panel-problems/
In general – where there are no existing mature trees, parking lots are probably the best location of all to put solar panels. And in most cases, probably makes more sense that planting new trees.
Hi Ron –
PV aren’t less accessible on roofs. Commercial roofs have access points and walkable surfaces. Furthermore, the panels and attachments are really very light and only add 3 lb/sf dead load to a roof (and that’s being very conservative). If a non-engineer tells you an existing structure can’t take the loads, be skeptical. What he is really saying is that a roofing contractor told him not to put it on the roof because that contractor didn’t want to take on any added liability for problems at penetrations. (This technology is so standard now that problems at penetrations should NOT be used as a reason to get PV off the roof… it’s not rocket science.)
Point noted, regarding commercial roofs. Sounds like you’ve studied this.
But, why is it that Sutter (apparently) doesn’t want to put them on its roof – and would rather cut down trees to put them in the parking lot? Which would also include the need for a structure to support them?
LINK TO ARTICLE DISCUSSING OFFICIAL APPEAL ON SUTTER CUTTING
LINK TO TREE DAVIS LETTER ON CUTTING POSTED ON VANGUARD