Crestmont Clean-up: Not the trees?

It’s a bit like the Prop 8 thing: Hurry up and wait.

It looks like I jumped the gun when I posted that UCSF was doing something about the hazardous trees. I’d written to UCSF to ask if they’d pulled permits to deal with the hazardous trees on Crestmont — from Devonshire to the cul-de-sac, and especially around the area where the road turns from west to north.  (City permits are needed to remove any tree over 20 feet tall if it’s within ten feet of a public right-of-way.)

Nope. That may be happening later. Here’s the response from UCSF’s Damon Lew:

The work that is beginning this week will focus on overgrowth and removal of hazardous ground material and not the removal of hazardous trees.

The trees you mention may have been identified in a recent hazardous tree survey that was done for the Facilities Management (FM) Dept.   The work that will be done once the tree hazard survey is received by UCSF will not take place until later this year.

So I guess right now it’s precisely what they said: Mowing down vegetation for 2 feet from the roadway, including overhanging shrubs. (This may take care of some overhanging trees, actually; we’ll find out.)

If you are living on Christopher or Crestmont and have plants across the road you want to save, it may be a good idea to mark them in some way. Or be out there to talk to the crew.

[ETA: Today Damon Lew sent out a notice that they actually will be removing two hazardous trees:

I’m writing to inform you that on either Monday, August 23rd, or Tuesday, August 24th, Bartlett Tree Experts will be performing the following hazardous tree work along Crestmont Drive:

· Cutting down 1 Monterey Pine located across from 171 Crestmont Dr.
· Cutting down 1 Monterey Pine located across from 90 Crestmont Dr.
· Time permitting – cut down branches overhanging the street within the area

The stumps of the trees will be cut down to 2-4” above grade and debris from the project will be removed from the site. These trees were recently identified as part of a hazardous tree survey performed by Hortscience and were also brought to our attention by several of our neighbors. No noisy work will be performed by 9:00 a.m. but staging of the area may begin earlier.]