Destruction, With or Without a Permit

First, the good news on the construction front.  The house at the corner of Wessyngton and North Highland, across Wessyngton from where the apartments used to be, is being renovated rather than demolished and replaced with a completely different house.  As it turns out, they didn't even dismantle the garage - it has new siding, as does the second floor on the back of the house.

Another piece of good news is that the rental house on our street that is currently vacant got a new roof put on it this week.  This strongly suggests that the owner doesn't plan to sell it to anyone who will demolish it and replace it with new construction any time soon.

The new, very large house that was built where Angela's house used to be is no longer yellow. It has now been painted a sort of tan color.

Yesterday morning, when I was walking the dog, I noticed something I'd never noticed before.  This is the sign that is in the yard at the duplex -- I took this picture back in September, when the sign was first placed there.

Note the wording:

A. Stillman doesn't only have permission to remove the trees marked with the orange "X," he or she has permission to destroy them.   That's a pretty strong word.  Yesterday afternoon, when I was walking the dog the next time, Iain came with me and I pointed this wording out to him.  Were they trying to make it completely clear that the trees in  question were going to be killed, reduced to firewood and sawdust, and not relocated to some forest on the outskirts of the city where they would live out their lives, safe from developers?  Permission to "remove" the trees might suggest that.

Let's be completely clear about this.  The trees have been sawed into chunks of wood and are awaiting disposal.  They are definitely not being relocated to a tree sanctuary.  This is the view from Lynsley's deck.  (Incidentally, the structure is the upper left hand corner is the garage of the very large new house that used to be yellow and now is tan.)

Yesterday afternoon Iain and I continued on around the block.  Usually we cut through the parking lot at Morningside Presbyterian back to Wessyngton, but I told him I'd noticed a yellow sign on the house on North Morningside near the church that used to have the front yard completely filled with bamboo, and I wanted to see what it was.  So we walked past the house with dog statues in front of it on to this house, which had the ubiquitous dumpster in the front yard.

I don't know what the story is with this house, but there are good sized trees growing on the roof, suggesting a certain degree of lack of attention to maintenance.

The yellow sign that I'd caught a glimpse of from the street was a Stop Work order.  Apparently there weren't the proper permits for construction or demolition. 

There's a large tree in the front yard, marked with two X's in fluorescent orange. But there is no sign from the arborist in the yard, about a request to remove a tree. And looking at the drawing on the back of this tree, in the same bright orange, I am thinking that the arborist didn't paint those X's.

There was this sign in the yard, in front of the house.  I was amused by it, as it didn't seem likely that the intent was to renovate, restore, or renew, unless by renew one meant "demolish and replace with new construction." But of course I could be wrong.

And I guess they're planning on a new tree, too.