Seventy mile-per-hour winds ripped through Vermont in early January during a storm that closed roads, uprooted solar arrays and left thousands of people without power. In Burlington’s Kieslich Park, tree trunks splintered; fallen timber blocked a footpath and crushed a chain-link fence that separates the wooded tract from Cambrian Rise, a sprawling private development on North Avenue.
Workers for S.D. Ireland, a concrete company building luxury condos on the property, cut back the branches that breached their property line — then, without asking permission, crossed onto city land and strip cut three swaths of trees, uprooting many of them. Some of the trees were more than 100 feet from the Cambrian Rise property line.
“We still can’t get back what nature had in place.” City Councilor Melo Grant
S.D. Ireland says it did the work as a favor, but city officials say the company scarred the land, which is conserved. Neighbors have gone a step further, accusing S.D. Ireland of trying to improve views of Lake Champlain for its million-dollar condos — an allegation the company vigorously denies. S.D. Ireland has apologized and pledged to pay for the damage, though nothing is yet settled, and it could be months before the city sees a dime.
Even then, “we still can’t get back what nature had in place,” City Councilor Melo Grant (P-Central District) said. “What happened here is egregious.”
The spat is the latest between nature enthusiasts and the builders who have cleared much of the heavily wooded plot that was once home to Burlington College. Facing insurmountable debt, the college sold off most of its land in 2014 to Eric Farrell, a real estate developer with big plans for the property by the lake.
In 2016, the city bought a 12-acre slice from Farrell for $2 million. The city worked with the Vermont Land Trust and Vermont Housing & Conservation Board and later signed a conservation easement meant to protect the land as a natural area. Now known as Kieslich Park, the largely forested area also has a community garden and a poetry walk, a self-guided stroll where visitors can read verses engraved on panels that dot the landscape.
Much of the park is tucked behind Cambrian Rise, which abuts Lakeview Cemetery. Workers broke ground on the project in 2017 when Farrell renovated the former St. Joseph’s Orphanage into modern apartments. The following year, he cut more than 10 acres of trees, spawning funereal posts from activists on social media. Since then, Farrell has continued to build, largely without objection. He’s twice amended a development agreement with the city to increase the number of housing units there and now expects 1,050 across 14 buildings.
Today, six buildings are complete or under construction, including One25 Cambrian Way, on a southwest corner lot that Farrell sold in 2021 to S.D. Ireland, a prominent family-owned company whose president, Scott Ireland, is a partner in the CityPlace Burlington project downtown. The company’s six-story Cambrian Rise building is slated to open this fall with 117 high-end apartments and condos, one of which is listed for $1.65 million.
The tree cutting only recently garnered public attention. S.D. Ireland notified city officials about the strip cutting back in January, but Cindi Wight, director of the city’s Parks, Recreation and Waterfront Department, admitted at a recent meeting that she “didn’t think twice about it.” It wasn’t until March or April, Wight said, that a Vermont Housing & Conservation Board staffer visited the land and reported that S.D. Ireland had violated the conservation easement.
“There’s still, thankfully, lots and lots of trees between our building and the lake.” Patrick O’Brien
In an emailed statement, S.D. Ireland vice president Patrick O’Brien told Seven Days that workers assumed the city was busy cleaning up other storm damage that day.
“We thought we would do them a favor and cut up and remove the ones that had fallen in the park,” he wrote. “We have since learned that for a variety of reasons we should have just cut the trees off at the property line.”
The city hired Will Keeton, a University of Vermont ecology professor, to assess the damage. According to his report, S.D. Ireland pulled tree trunks from the ground and exposed the roots, an “exceedingly rare” practice that harms the land. The cutting removed habitat for animals that might have holed up in downed trees, Keeton wrote, and the land is now more vulnerable to invasive plant species.
O’Brien says the company removed 10 or 12 large trees. To replace them, Keeton’s report recommends planting at least 133 saplings to ensure enough of them survive. Purchasing and planting the trees would cost about $23,500 over two years, he estimated.
Some Cambrian Rise residents aren’t pleased — and aren’t buying that S.D. Ireland cut the trees out of goodwill. John Champoux put it bluntly: “If you were buying a condo in there, wouldn’t you want to see the lake?”
On a recent walk through the park, it was hard to tell whether the cutting had really improved the views. Since Champoux last visited in early spring, the foliage had grown in, largely obstructing sight lines to the lake — at least from ground level.
Whatever the intent, S.D. Ireland’s tree clearing puzzles Zoe Richards, who chairs the city’s Conservation Board.
“It was just hard to understand why someone would feel compelled to do that,” she said. “I actually, honestly, don’t know what the truth is there. They should have known better not to make a cut like that.”
The criticisms have rankled O’Brien. At a recent city council subcommittee meeting, he compared the situation to helping someone onto a sidewalk only to have the person kick them. He also dismissed claims that the cuts created a better view.
“That’s absolutely not the case. Go down to the site and look,” O’Brien said. “There’s still, thankfully, lots and lots of trees between our building and the lake.”
O’Brien has said S.D. Ireland will right its wrong, but it’s unclear how that sentiment will translate. At their meeting on Monday, conservation board members voted unanimously to request that the city consider levying punitive damages against S.D. Ireland in addition to requiring the company pay to replace the trees. Doing so would compensate for the loss of irreplaceable forestland — and make other developers take notice, they said.
“Maybe next time they won’t be so quick to rip trees out by the roots,” board member Donald Meals said.
Joe Magee, Mayor Emma Mulvaney-Stanak’s deputy chief of staff, said the city isn’t pursuing legal action and is having “amicable discussions” with S.D. Ireland to resolve the situation. Isaac Bissell, the conservation stewardship director for the Vermont Housing & Conservation Board, which holds the park’s easement and could enforce it in court, also seemed optimistic that the city would recover its losses without a lawsuit.
In 2007, two men faced criminal charges and a $5,000 fine for cutting nearly 1,000 trees to blaze a ski trail in Jay State Forest. They were convicted but didn’t serve any jail time. Last fall, the insurance company for a New Hampshire man accused of cutting more than 800 trees in Hazen’s Notch State Park agreed to pay the State of Vermont $75,000 to settle a lawsuit. Vermont law also affords protections to landowners, allowing them to recoup three times the value of trees felled without permission.
Carol Czina, a Myrtle Street resident who frequents Kieslich Park, said the $23,500 payout suggested in UVM’s report “seems like a tiny amount” for a company as large as S.D. Ireland. “That’s like me giving $1 to someone who dropped their ice cream because I bumped them,” she said.
A resolution could be months away. The city council and state conservation board would need to review any agreement before it became final. The young trees wouldn’t be planted until fall.
Meantime, more trees are slated to come down. As part of his development plans, Farrell told the city he would build a new path that will connect Cambrian Rise with the Burlington bike path, straight through Kieslich Park. He already has a contractor in mind: S.D. Ireland.
The original print version of this article was headlined “Tree Totalers | A developer’s storm cleanup crossed into a Burlington park — and left a mark”
This article appears in Jun 5-11, 2024.
Got something to say?
Send a letter to the editor and we'll publish your feedback in print!