Fight to save the trees in Naples neighborhood

When Sue Canfield looks up in her front yard, she sees light shining through the sprawling branches of a 25-year-old Oak towering above her.

The trees, which line every road in the waterways of Naples, is why she choose this neighborhood but soon those very trees will be taken down.

“So many of the other places were just bare of any type of greenery, we’d love the trees,” said Canfield, “I think the oak trees are beautiful. The canopy as you drive through them are gorgeous. The birds in the morning when I’m out walking. It’s beautiful.”

Canfield told WINK News Reporter Liz Biro she learned at a recent HOA meeting there are plans to take these trees down.

“And we were like all of them they and they said yes, from the street to the sidewalk. And whatever that distance is. They would do it on the other side.” said Canfield.

“You can just imagine if they’re all gone, it’ll look very barren in here,” said Donna Algier, another resident upset with the tree removals.

Algier says the boards reasoning is that the tree roots are messig up the sidewalks, and they just paid $100,000 to fix them.

“That’s in 25 years,” says Algier. They’ve never spent that kind of money repairing the sidewalks because of the roots.”

Algier says there has to be other ways around it, so she reached out to Collier County.

They sent her the neighborhood’s request to remove the trees. The request says it’s only for the ones at the front of the neighborhood.

The county told her this is phase one of four, She believes that’s the HOA being sneaky.

“because they wouldn’t require a vote, it would probably fall under the 5% of the operating cost. So they can use whatever funds we have to do it,” said Algier.

Algier says neighbors didn’t learn of the plans to take down the trees until that request was in the county’s hands.

In addition, neighbors were told that if the trees are removed, the county will require them to plant two canopy trees in their yard away from the sidewalk on their own dime.

WINK News reached out to the neighborhood’s management and every member of the board of directors for comment and has not heard back.