The answer is yes Mountain View is losing its trees. We don’t need a study or data to tell us what our eyes see.
Runaway development money trumps the environment.

It is extremely easy for any concerned individual to get 'old Google Maps' satellite images, and compare a decade ago to recently. A reasonable programmer could compare green trees coverage - from the satellite images. Maybe just do a 'green blob' area subtract for each 'green blob' from a decade ago. Giant Old 'green blobs' compute are covering more area than Small Young 'green blobs'. Hey - can't a Foothills College Geographic Information Systems wiz student group do this for a project?

Thank you Voice / Mark for trying to get the public data out of the City! Usually, when this effort shows such 'lack of policy-making data' (like bike-pedestrian collisions) our City steps up and improves their data processes.

Parks & Recreation Commission - your partial responsibility for (tree) oversight. Please Step Up!

or - study article on recent Earth imaging science, "Science" AAAS

Web Link

The apartment complex that I live in Montecito Ave has around 25 some trees and they are as old as the complex is which is more than 25 years and all the trees are going to be removed in the next few nmonths because it is going to be developed into densely packed new homes just how all the recently developed new homes look in Mountain view, multi storey-ed and densely packed. I dont think these trees are going to be replaced anywhere else in Mountain View with new trees and that is the true fact. The single home with huge backyward adjacent to my complex had many many trees has been cut down and replaced with pretty much wooden strctures now and I don't think those trees are replaced and there won't be space either in the new structure. Unfortunately, nothing short of a humongous catastrophic earthquake will change our greedy and arrogant behavior towards mother nature. There was a time , people had some awareness but now, its all greed. Trust me , the people who are going to occupy these new homes, the people in the city council and the people working for the companies in this area are all fake arrogant selfish liberals with no cocnern for the local environment. enough of my rant.

@someone concerned

Except that by building a tall and dense structure we're preventing sprawl from tearing down even more trees. I do support an initiative to plant trees elsewhere though for whatever is torn down.

I don't understand the two different committees thing, why are there separate processes?

I live in the Cuesta park area and i see many new street trees in peoples yards, aging from I would guess 1-5 years of age. I also see many original street trees aging out and dying. In another 10 years those new trees will be shading the streets just like the old ones did 20-30 years ago.

Yes, the canopy is definitely shrinking, unlike 'leafy Los Altos'. The high density Prometheus-type complexes are building out to the sidewalks, clearing trees all in the interest of luxury rentals, calling these places 'homes' is a misnomer. It's transient housing for highly paid tech workers who will live there and move on to a real community when they want to settle down. The canopy is shrinking along with the quality of life in Mountain View, but high density is the priority for our current council, keep that in mind with upcoming elections. Developers and Tech own Mountain View, not the residents.

Mark, thanks for highlighting this issue.

@JR there have been two separate processes since the Heritage Tree Ordinance was created years ago. When I was on the Parks & Rec Commission, we asked City Council if we could review the Ordinance with a view towards combining the two and treating all heritage trees the same, but City Council narrowed our scope to just updating the signage for all heritage trees. We did make some progress. We were able to create a tree canopy goal of 10% along with a Tree Master Plan. It is why the City now tracks more closely how many trees are removed versus how many are planted.

I encourage anyone who is a resident and who cares about MV trees to apply to join the Parks & Rec Commission when the City advertises openings. I believe there was an opening earlier this year and only one person applied. There are openings on a regular basis because you're only allowed to serve on any City commission for a maximum of two terms of four years.

It’s obvious we’re losing trees. Planting small trees doesn’t replace large ones. Tons of construction displaces plants. Its pretty simple. You can create all charts, data and “studies” that say otherwise. Bottom line is if you keep developing open space, putting more and more buildings in smaller spaces, there’s less space for plants, even if you “replant”.

The result is there isn't enough oxygen and people get crazy. We’ve got the crazy here in Mountain View.

I was driving on 13th St. yesterday in San Jose. That major thoroughfare gets less traffic than our “quiet” residential streets. The reality is pretty sobering.

Thanks everyone for your comments on this.

I wanted to highlight for everyone that we've posted a link in the story to a data map showing the various sites where trees were removed.

Web Link

We're working on being able to embed this and future data illustrations in our articles.

"Planting small trees doesn’t replace large ones."

That's....exactly what happens. The new trees mature and shade for 60 years. That's how nature works as well...small trees replace the dead ones.
I'm pretty sure that's how it has worked.

Should we replace 60 year old trees with new 60 year old trees when the old ones fall over?

Seems a bit daft.

@ya The point is the canopy is shrinking in MV, this would NEVER happen in Los Altos, this is all recent news. Healthy trees are coming down, these are not just replacing diseased end of life trees. And it takes decades to replace them. MV bears the brunt of all the problems caused by a booming Silicon Valley Economy (housing homelessness etc) while the affluent execs who benefit from this boom choose to live in places like Los Altos, Atherton, Los Gatos, places not being cemented over with huge apartment complexes.

I don't understand why we don't have zoning laws in Mountain View like the one in Los Altos? Are people living in Mountain View not humans? Are the big companies invading Mountain View going to deprive us of our basic rights?

Thanks Voice Reporter Mark! I did not notice the data link you had to the city GIS system (Geographical Information System). PROBLEM - why the heck is the tree database 5 years old?

???? 2013 data base is not sufficient alone to determine "trend data". Over 60,000 trees in that data base, if we had (as a City) the 2018 data for each of those trees (and "former trees") the problem of unknown metrics would not exist.

City Manager of Mountain View - please get this job of city management done (ASAP pretty please).

City Council candidates - please make your policy views on this issue publicly clear. What EXACTLY would you work to change in current policy and current data tracking?

Yes, lamentably.
"They paved Paradise, Put up a parking lot..."

Mountain View is losing its residents. I care less about trees than I do about ensuring that we build enough housing.

If we didn't have so many 1-2 story buildings, we'd have a lot more open space for large trees. So start approving really, really tall buildings.