CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Residents in Plaza Midwood are ringing the alarm after most of the trees in their neighborhood were removed by Storm Water Services. They hope city or county leaders will step in to help.
A creek running through the Central Avenue neighborhood was widened by Charlotte-Mecklenburg Storm Water Services to reduce flooding and erosion in the area.
The dozens of trees removed for the $27.5 million project are concerning residents.
"The root cause of why we’re here is loss of trees,” resident Adam Loeber said Thursday night.
Loeber spoke with the Storm Water Advisory Committee to try to get help restoring lost greenery.
"It is really rough looking,” committee member Rick Roti admitted.
The committee is responsible for creating budgets and policies for Storm Water Services. Roti is pushing to revisit tree planting policies because of the Plaza Midwood creek project.
Roti explained to WCNC Charlotte that he wants the agency's budget to allow it to focus on and enhance "environmental assets" like trees while doing storm drainage improvements.
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A city-owned lot in the neighborhood that had trees on it was cleared for the project to make room for equipment and pipes. Loeber hopes now that the project is finishing up in his neighborhood, trees can be replanted on the lot as a solution.
However, the agency isn’t required to do that.
"We try to preserve that natural, mature forest to the extent we can," Jordan Miller with Storm Water Services said in the committee meeting.
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Miller added that the way the agency replaces trees that it remove varies, but it has installed more than 20,000 plants since 2020.
Storm Water officials said the city is looking into selling the cleared lot and its future is uncertain.
Contact Julia Kauffman at jkauffman@wcnc.com and follow her on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.