To: Jeff Jacobs, Mayor of St. Louis Park and Anne Mavity, City Council representative

Save our old growth trees and control oversize home development in St. Louis Park

Our city is being overrun with developers buying existing properties, tearing them down, and replacing them with ugly, cookie-cutter homes with huge footprints (exceeding 3000 square feet). Most of these homes are priced to sell above $500-600k, double or triple the value of existing houses in the area, guaranteeing that all of our property taxes will increase. Many of these developments have also resulted in a loss of old growth trees (e.g. some that are 150-200 years old). By the loss of these homes and trees that pre-existed any development, we are experiencing immeasurable loss – not limited to views, a mature tree canopy, and our city’s character and charm.

Why is this important?

I have lived in St. Louis Park for most of my life and have watched these developments pop up repeatedly in my neighborhood in the last couple of years, near Edina and Linden Hills. The final straw was being notified that a "vacant" lot (where four 150-year-old Bur Oak trees reside) is going to be developed into a 3700 square foot single family home that removes two of the largest trees. The city is being tarnished by all of the new development. Despite the city requiring neighbors to be notified of new construction and having a tree preservation ordinance in place, there is little that the city does to intervene in cases of new house construction (the tree preservation ordinance doesn't even apply to single family homes). There is nothing else for us to do besides take action and try to preserve what history we have left.

UPDATE: Our efforts are being noticed. The City Council has responded and the media are taking an interest. We were on WCCO radio yesterday and have started a Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/saveslptrees/timeline). The developer has offered to sell us the property back so we need to take action now. Stay tuned...

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