BURBANK, Calif. — Crouched in her garden, Dyane MacKinnon may look serene but dig a little deeper and it’s clear she’s in battle mode. While she’s long dedicated herself to combatting global climate change, this latest fight is right outside her front door: a 100-year-old Aleppo pine tree towers over her property.

“Look at the shade,” she said, pointing out how the tree shields her pollinator garden from the harsh sun. “Without the shade of the trees, it would just be dead. Everything would be scorched and dead.”

MacKinnon also credits the tree with keeping her Burbank home cool enough to avoid using air conditioning during what would otherwise be peak afternoon heat. The pines are why she moved to this block and bought her house. She sees them as a vital part of her neighborhood’s DNA.

“Oh my gosh, it’s like it’s its own life,” MacKinnon said, a hand on the trunk of an Aleppo. “This breathes in all the stuff that we put out into the universe and into the planet so that we can have conveniences like cars and oil and gas and all of those things. This takes all of that and then returns us with oxygen.”

Given all of that, she simply couldn’t believe her eyes when she read a letter she and her neighbors received from the city earlier this month. It informed her that her tree and all the Aleppo pines on North Niagara were slated for removal. 

Five minutes later, MacKinnon sat down at her computer and typed up a petition, which has now collected more than 1,300 signatures from community members who don’t want to see the trees to come down.

Unfortunately, some have already come down. High winds and heavy rains this past winter saw four Aleppo pines fall on North Niagara and Pass Ave, crashing into houses and crushing cars, including MacKinnon’s truck. But she remains rooted in her position.

“It’s still not a reason to get rid of trees,” she insisted. “Just the amount of benefits from these trees versus the one or two that fall… I’m not seeing where their reasoning is coming in.”

“Removing any tree in the city is such a difficult decision,” Marisa Garcia explained.

Garcia grew up in Burbank and says she knows these neighborhoods very well. She has always been proud of the city’s trees, even before she became the Parks and Recreation director.

The issue, she said, comes down to public safety and time isn’t on their side. 

“Aleppo pine trees have a lifespan of 100 to 150 years in a perfect setting,” she explained. “So, being in an urban environment, 100 years is really the end of their natural life cycle.”

Garcia said that after the tree failures that occurred during the February storms, the city studied the whole urban forest. One of the department’s arborists is a certified tree risk assessor, she explained, and so they were able to identify the problems with the Aleppos and fast-tracked their removal ahead of other phases of their overall reforestation strategy.

“The safety of our residents is our priority,” Garcia said. “Other things were put on hold so that we could really address these trees and make sure that we had a plan in place, as we prepare for future wind and rainstorms as well as our heat. This extreme heat wave is definitely causing a lot of stress on all of our trees in the city.”

There are 121 Aleppo pines slated for removal around the city, and 34 of them are on North Niagara. Garcia said they will be replaced and then some, with 60 new trees planted to make up for the 34 removed on those few blocks. They won’t be Aleppos, but there are specifically selected species that residents can choose from.

“We know that the climate is changing, and we know it’s going to get warmer over the years,” she said. “So we want to make sure that we’re planting trees that will survive.”

Not everyone on Niagara is against the removal. 

“So as you can see, all of the branches, they’re all dead,” Peter Zaharkiv said, standing below a large limb of the Aleppo pine tree in front of his house, which is just up the block from the MacKinnons. “Even the squirrels don’t want to live here anymore.”

Zaharkiv has always loved the tree but knows it’s become a hazard — in part, he thinks, because of poor maintenance by the city over the years and in part, perhaps, from an infestation. It’s putting everyone at risk, he says, and he’s ready to see it go.

“We’re about as close to being tree huggers as you can be on the street,” he insisted. “And we’ve done everything we can to save these trees. But life goes on. And we recognize that sometimes you have to let go.”

His concern isn’t the removal but the replacement plan — especially since one of the three options offered by the city isn’t a pine tree at all but a Chinese Pistache.

“We are known as the pine street,” Zaharkiv said of his block.

It’s kind of a Burbank landmark. When he tells people he lives on the street full of pines, they known exactly what street he means.

“If we start mixing it with deciduous, we’re going to lose the character of the street,” he said. “It’s going to just be a random collection of trees.”

It’s not just the character that MacKinnon said will be lost. She spoke to a real estate agent who told her that without the tree, her home could lose as much as 10% of its property value. 

Zaharkiv shook off that concern.

“I think what I’d worry more about is the house being destroyed, then I have to worry about an aesthetic at this point,” he said.

It’s a neighborhood to be lived in, he added, and he has no intention of moving anytime soon.

Still, MacKinnon worries that even for those who stay, it will be years before they see the benefits of the new trees.

“There’s no benefit to us,” she said. “None of these trees will actually grow tall enough to shade our homes. And they’re saying that it’s a comparable replacement, and it just isn’t.”

She has started a GoFundMe page to raise money to pay for an environmental lawyer, hoping they can find a legal avenue to save the trees on their street. She has also been attending City Council meetings and says she is open to discussion with the city — but she has some conditions. 

“They are dictating to us, the people who actually live here, as opposed to including us in this plan, what trees can go in after they remove all these trees,” she said. “We want a unified look to our street. We want a townhall to ensure that everyone on the street is heard.”  

And ultimately, MacKinnon wants a more measured approach, rather than removing the pines in one fell swoop and loading the block with saplings.

“I’m all for a long-term plan, 30 years, 40 years of systematically replacing them as these trees get to bigger, and have more benefits to them,” she said.

Garcia also said she’s open to hearing from residents and left the door open to the possibility of maybe buying a little more time, a few months maybe. But she also doesn’t want to give anyone false hope. The trees need to be removed, she stressed, and she is asking residents for patience and understanding.  

“I would just ask them to, you know, really understand the difficult decision that we’re in, but knowing that we care about them, we care about their health and their safety,” she said. “And we also want to make sure that we’re responsible to our future generations and planting trees that will live long past our lives.”

But MacKinnon remains firmly planted. A makeup artist, her work is mostly on hold because of the Hollywood strikes. She describes herself as tenacious, and right now, she says, she has nothing but time.

“And if I have the chain myself to the tree, I will,” she said. “And that is no joke.”