.bodytext {float: left; } .floatimg-left-hort { float:left; margin-top:10px; margin-right: 10px; width:300px; clear:left;} .floatimg-left-caption-hort { float:left; margin-bottom:10px; width:300px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;} .floatimg-left-vert { float:left; margin-top:10px; margin-right:15px; width:200px;} .floatimg-left-caption-vert { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; font-size: 10px; width:200px;} .floatimg-right-hort { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 300px;} .floatimg-right-caption-hort { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 300px; font-size: 10px; } .floatimg-right-vert { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px;} .floatimg-right-caption-vert { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px; font-size: 10px; } .floatimgright-sidebar { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px; border-top-style: double; border-top-color: black; border-bottom-style: double; border-bottom-color: black;} .floatimgright-sidebar p { line-height: 115%; text-indent: 10px; } .floatimgright-sidebar h4 { font-variant:small-caps; } .pullquote { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 150px; background: url(http://www.dmbusinessdaily.com/DAILY/editorial/extras/closequote.gif) no-repeat bottom right !important ; line-height: 150%; font-size: 125%; border-top: 1px solid; border-bottom: 1px solid;} .floatvidleft { float:left; margin-bottom:10px; width:325px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;} .floatvidright { float:right; margin-bottom:10px; width:325px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;} Where some people see the shimmering glow of progress, Tim Urban sees tree stumps.

He counted nine of them, all more than 12 inches in diameter, along one stretch of Ingersoll Avenue, where a streetscaping plan is getting started. He found lots more at the site of the 128-acre Southern Ridge development planned at the south edge of Des Moines.

“Here we are, raping the site,” Urban said of the Southern Ridge area. “As a central city, trees are one of the assets we have that suburbs don’t. But now we’ve said we’re more interested in getting the maximum yield off the land.”

Urban is both a veteran developer and a member of Des Moines’ Plan and Zoning Commission. As a member of the commission, he examined streetscape drawings and signed off on the Ingersoll plan. “We never conjured the thought: What is it replacing? Is it worth the tradeoff?” Urban said.

As a developer, he says, “I’ve planned around trees all my life.” Urban was a force behind the development of West Glen Town Center in West Des Moines, and says trees were a consideration even at that premier location.

“Those large trees at the Josephs (Jewelry) site, those were the only ones left when we started developing West Glen,” he said. “We had a big battle over keeping them, particularly that big maple, which is a softwood subject to storm damage. We had a big battle with Josephs, too, when we sold the parcel. It was preserved at some expense to Toby Joseph, who had to design around it.”

Another developer’s project now under way on the north side of West Glen is a different story. The first step in creating The Village at Ponderosa was to scrape almost everything off the existing golf course.

“It had dense, large specimen trees, particularly walnuts,” Urban said. “They submitted a plan with so much stuff stuck on the property, all they did is save a row of trees at the top of the slope between it and West Glen; everything else went.”

Urban understands why developers prefer to draw on a blank sheet of paper, but wonders why cities aren’t standing up for their trees. “I don’t know why the city (West Des Moines) wouldn’t have said ‘we want to preserve the integrity of the site, so you’re going to have to compromise and preserve these critical trees,'” he said.

Des Moines Plan and Zoning tells developers that they need to replace each decent-sized tree with a number of small ones. The total diameter of the new trunks should equal the diameters of the trees that were removed. But it’s not foolproof.

“It’s been loosey-goosey,” Urban said. “Then the developers got clever and said, ‘they put us through the meat grinder on our plan, and it costs us money, so we’ll just take the trees down first, then submit a proposal.’ That’s what happened down south” at Southern Ridge.

At the very least, Urban figures, the city should have an ordinance spelling everything out, tree-wise.

So the plan and zoning board has asked city staff members to do some research on what other cities are doing and make a tree preservation ordinance recommendation to the city council this month.

It’s too bad that every single thing has to be regulated, but efficiency and profit traditionally have had no trouble beating out nature. “Somehow,” Urban said, “we don’t seem to have our priorities straight.”