By Eric S. Page / 7SanDiego / April 10-11, 2025
Nobody seems to know when, exactly, a stretch of towering Mexican fan palms were planted along one of San Diego’s most iconic streets in one of its most iconic neighborhoods, but most would agree that the gently swaying giants, visible to the east as far away as the runway of San Diego International Airport, have come to be identified with the community of Mission Hills.
On Wednesday, April 9, the city of San Diego took steps to protect the trees for the future, placing 33 soaring fan palms under Conserve A Tree status after prodding from one local historian and the San Diego Community Forest Advisory Board, which recommended such an action at a meeting last month.
“Trees under protection status are meant to deter damages and tree removal by adjacent private property owners and identify the importance of the tree(s) to the community,” city spokesman Anthony Santacroce said in an email to NBC 7 on Thursday.
With the designation, the trees are believed to be the first examples of palms — of 400 or so historically designated trees in the city — to be offered the protections by the city in the two decades or so of the program.
Efforts to protect the trees
Janet O’Dea, a founder of Mission Hills Heritage, told NBC 7 last month that she secured the designation for the towering palms back in 2009 but the paperwork was lost. She maintains that the trees were planted around 100 years ago at the direction of San Diego’s original arborist, Kate Sessions, whose legacy to the city, among other contributions, includes the creation of Balboa Park.
“One of the first things we did is, we got our home historically designated, and we’ve been researching the area pretty much ever since,” O’Dea told NBC 7.
According to San Diego City Council Policy 900-19, the trees, which are mostly native to Baja California, were only able to qualify for the designation if they are “50 years or older or have a connection to some historic event, building, district, or were planted by a historically significant individual.”
According to O’Dea, the trees satisfy all three criteria.
A majority of the members of the San Diego Community Forest Advisory Board agreed, 6-3, at their March meeting that the specimens of Washingtonia robusta along a several-block stretch of Sunset merited the protected status.
Opponents of the designation included one board member who pointed out that palm trees are not even really trees but, rather, are members of the grass family, and San Diego’s city forester, Brian Widener.
“We haven’t had any palm trees designated as protected trees in the city under this program — which I think has been going on for about 20 years — and we have about over 400 protected trees, so we just didn’t feel like there was a need to protect these palm trees,” Widener said at the time.
Widener, who did not necessarily agree that the trees were planted by Sessions back in the day, said that palms don’t provide a lot of ecosystem benefits or tree canopy cover for the city, and that there are also costs associated with maintaining/trimming them every two years for public safety and tree health as well. The palm trees in question cost about $75 to trim, for a total of about $2,000 every two years.
The city’s recognition of the palms protected status, however, is on a biological clock regardless.
“The city of San Diego, at any time, continues to maintain the right to remove any street tree, regardless of protection status, in order to address safety within the right of way or address a tree health or urban forest health concerns,” Santacroce said in the email he sent Thursday.
While the trees will be the beneficiaries of special care by arborists, the city can only maintain them for so long since they’re mostly in the 60-70 foot range currently, and are reaching the upper limits of what a tree trimmer in a bucket truck can safely reach — or climb to, for that matter. According to Widener, nobody knows exactly how fast a mature fan palm grows, though some estimates put it annually in the 2-3 feet range.
While many experts agree that the Mexican palm fan can reach 100 feet, Widener told NBC 7 in March that, once the trees hit 90 feet, they can no longer be financially or safely maintained.
“… other municipalities throughout Southern California are using other kinds of equipment to get up there and maintain those trees, but that’s probably not sustainable for the city of San Diego due to the size of our city and the number of Mexican fan palms that we have,” Widener said.
Widener said in March, however, that, even without the city’s protections awarded this week, that there “are no plans to remove these trees.”
“We try to protect every single street tree within the city regardless of conservation status,” Widener told NBC 7 after the meeting.
O’Dea’s concern is that, now the protected status has been granted, that the city continue to honor that recognition.
“I started this in 2009,” O’Dea said in March. “The paperwork got lost. It didn’t get followed through, and this is a whole new board, and although I’m still here, they’ve all changed, so they don’t have any knowledge of it, and that’s a complete example of how, you know, administrations change and knowledge gets lost.”
On social media on Wednesday, O’Dea expressed pleasure at the decision but also some surprise. That said, she plans on remaining vigilant.
“The palm trees are in a database, and they will add that the trees are under protection, which is what I thought in 2009, but this time I am going to double-check,” O’Dea posted, adding, “I hope, whether it is next week or 20 years from now, the trees will be watched over and given some attention at least once per year, and when the time comes, there will be mitigation for them as they die off.”
It’s unclear why this wasn’t done to protect Point Loma and OB’s palm trees. Anybody have a clue?
Frank, exactly! That was my first thought. Perhaps this administration doesn’t seem to really understand their own, standard-issue rally cry ForAllOfUs sloagan.
I’d say that someone in Mission Hills who wants the palms to stay has a more extensive understanding of the legal system and other experts who would support their point of view than the folks in Pt. Loma and Ocean Beach.