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North Fair Oaks residents are renewing their call for San Mateo County to address a long-standing problem of dying or missing trees along Middlefield Road between Fifth and Ninth avenues.
A petition signed by more than 140 residents urges the county to plant replacement trees, install irrigation and increase community outreach on proper tree care.
“These trees were planted 25 years ago,” community leader Gabriela Valencia said during an Oct. 15 study session of the North Fair Oaks Community Council, an advisory body to the county Board of Supervisors. “Many trees have been missing for years. Many trees have been between life and death.”
The North Fair Oaks Community Alliance, a neighborhood advocacy group, first launched the petition in 2024. More than 40 residents signed the petition then.
“This petition was revived because nothing had been done in two years,” said Valencia, a member of the alliance.
In the revived petition, the alliance raised concern that many trees “have died or failed to thrive and have never been replaced. In addition, the existing trees do not have irrigation, making it difficult for them to survive and grow. As a result, this part of our community lacks the shade and environmental benefits that were originally intended.”
The petition added: “Trees provide many important benefits, including shade during extreme heat, improved air quality, and a more attractive and welcoming neighborhood. These benefits are especially important in North Fair Oaks – a densely populated, working-class community with limited green space.”
North Fair Oaks is also home to many Latino families. It is tucked in an unincorporated part of the county surrounded by Atherton, Menlo Park and Redwood City.
During the October meeting, county Public Works Director Tory Newman told the council that his department acknowledges and is responding to the community’s concerns.
“We’ve heard the calls,” Newman said. “We’re working on the trees between Fifth and Ninth.”
Among the work, he said, “we’ve asked our landscape maintenance contractor to investigate the existing irrigation systems that were in place when those trees were originally planted.”
Alliance President Ever Rodriguez told The Pulse in an email that as of early August, Middlefield between Fifth and Ninth had 26 trees, with 13 seemingly ill or not doing well. He also said eight spots, or planters, were missing trees.
Currently, according to Newman, one tree is dead or dying while six are missing.
“What we’re going to do is maintain the existing trees (and) try to have them pruned and shaped as best we can,” Newman said during the council session. The work would also involve replanting and reestablishing trees.
His department would make sure trees are “maintained appropriately going forward so we don’t end up in a situation” where they don’t thrive, he said.
In addition, he said, the department would reach out to the businesses in the area “with some education on what we would like from them to make sure that these trees are actually maintained appropriately and not pruned by anybody other than Public Works.”
Deputy County Executive Nicholas Calderon echoed that concern about some people in the community possibly taking it upon themselves to maintain the trees.
“They need to stop,” Calderon said during the meeting. “This is something that we have to do together in partnership.”
He acknowledged that the county needs to take ownership of how far things have fallen short.
“We have to change our practices to make sure that we are doing a better job of making sure the irrigation system doesn’t fail,” he said. The county also has to make sure “we’re properly pruning trees.”
Because the trees are along the street in an urban setting, Calderon noted, “you have to treat them differently than … if they were out in open space.”
Council member Kelly Parisi pointed out that much of the community’s frustration stems from the loss of trees and green space because of development.
“We are watching developers come in and buy up these 900- and 1,200-square-foot homes and put these massive mega-monstrosities on them and cut down trees in the process,” Parisi said during the meeting. “And it is killing our canopy. It is killing our weather. We’re going to look like a strip mall in Arizona shortly. That’s what I care about.”
Rodriguez told the Pulse that his group wants to meet with the county so other community members can get the information presented at last month’s council meeting.
“Unfortunately, the North Fair Oaks Community Alliance – the originator of this tree petition – has not formally been given this update directly,” Rodriguez said. “We plan to invite Public Works to give an update to our whole community or at least to those who signed the petition and answer any questions that people may have.”
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