Life & Limb: City says hazardous oaks on the Downtown Mall need to come down

“We are not removing the trees because we want to." said Riaan Anthony, Deputy Director of Charlottesville Parks and Recreation.

Because the willow oaks and their staggered placement along the Downtown Mall are such important design elements of the space, a 2005 design report commissioned by the City recommended a regime of replacing 1/3 of the trees every 10 years to "minimize risk of losing all the trees at once."

Seventeen years later, City officials are now saying that some of the trees have become a danger to pedestrians and businesses and that they plan to remove 9 of them at the beginning of next year.

"The willow oaks planted on the Mall are a treasure, conveying an immeasurable character and uniqueness to the Mall," reads the 2005 report by Wallace Roberts & Todd, an urban planning, urban design, and landscape architecture firm based in Philadelphia. "Arranged in clumps staggered from block to block down the center of the Mall, they are now about 50 feet tall.”

At the time, W…