Residents, businesses asked to support trees on Alameda streetscape Residents, businesses asked to support trees on Alameda streetscape (August 04, 2004)

By Marion Softky
Almanac Staff Writer

The new streetscape along Alameda de las Pulgas in Menlo Park is finally complete -- except for the holes in the sidewalks waiting for trees.

Now it's up to nearby residents and business owners to decide whether to complete the project by agreeing to maintain the 47 London plane trees proposed to shade the sidewalks and make that stretch of the Alameda more inviting.

The San Mateo County Board of Supervisors on July 27 took the first step to form a street tree maintenance district, which would allow neighbors and businesses to pay for maintaining the trees, which the county has agreed to buy and plant, over 20 years.

Early this week, 1,000 legal notices are hitting mail boxes in the area, asking whether owners of nearby homes and businesses are willing to pay for taking care of the new trees.

Properties receiving notices extend from Camino al Lago at the Atherton border to as far south as the intersection of Santa Cruz Avenue and the Alameda. The proposed maintenance district would extend to the Menlo Park border on the west, and most of the way to that border on the east, stopping just past Orange Avenue.

If the district is approved, assessments would appear every year on the owner's property-tax bill. The cost would be divided, with residents paying 95 percent and business owners 5 percent.

Homeowners would pay a total of $164.40 per parcel over 20 years -- or $11.40 a year for the first five years, and $7.16 for the next 15. The maximum assessment for commercial properties would be a total of $642.90 per parcel over 20 years -- or $45 a year for the first five years, and $27.86 a year for the rest.

Property owners are asked to return ballots either approving or protesting the tree-maintenance district. More than half the ballots received must support the assessment for it to take place.

The county supervisors will hold a formal hearing to receive protests -- and endorsements -- on Tuesday, September 14, at 9 a.m. at 400 County Center (corner of Bradford Street and Hamilton Avenue) in Redwood City. At that time, people may change their vote, noted Public Works Director Neil Cullen.

The board may continue the hearing at that time to allow for counting ballots. If more than 50 percent protest, the district fails.

Supervisor Rich Gordon, who has been shepherding the Alameda improvements for years, said he hopes the trees will be planted. "It completes the project," he said. "One of the goals from the beginning was to create a tree-lined, pedestrian-friendly boulevard."

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