Just as The Lorax speaks for the trees, the Ravenhill family and their neighbors gave a voice to the voiceless recently when they saved the life of a decades-old oak tree on Castillo Street. The towering Coast Live Oak, a downtown habitat for birds of prey and other wildlife, was going to be cut down to make way for development. In March, community members celebrated the city parks commission’s decision to deny the removal — as well as the developer’s failure to appeal.
Homeowners and longtime renters galvanized late last year when they learned that San Francisco–based developer Arvand Sabetian had submitted plans to remove the oak from the public alleyway adjacent to the investment property he purchased at 1124 Castillo Street. Geoffrey Ravenhill and his wife, Lauren, live next to the property. “Every morning, we wake up, drink coffee, and birdwatch,” said Geoffrey Ravenhill, who recently saw a hawk in the oak’s branches.
Around the oak stand modest family homes, many of which are around 100 years old. In October 2018, Sabetian filed his plans to remove the tree as part of a project to construct a two-story building with seven residential apartment units under the Average Unit-Size Density (AUD) incentive program. The plan included the construction of a 10-space parking lot, with the remainder of the existing building to be converted to three hotel units.