Construction continues on the Watson Manor project, but the dust has settled from a neighborhood/developer dispute about the life (and death) of a 150-year-old beech tree. The project was halted last August after the manager for UVA’s Institute for Advanced Studies and Culture, David Turner, violated the site plan by cutting down the 48" caliper beech.
Residents of University Circle were, in neighborhood association President Karen Dougald’s words, “very angry.” The city issued a stop-work order. Turner—the focus of residents’ ire—lost a challenge of the order before the Board of Zoning Appeals and resigned.
Joseph Davis stepped in as project manager for the Institute, offering upset residents multiple mea culpas.
 Construction’s back on track at Watson Manor, where renovations by UVA’s Institute for Advanced Studies and Culture were halted when developers chopped down an aging beech tree. |
“We were embarrassed to be in this situation, of having been called a bad neighbor,” says Davis nearly a year after the beech was axed.
Construction resumed after the Institute was fined $200 by the city, then paid the neighborhood $5,000 for new trees and posts on the circle. The neighbors negotiated an 8" caliper beech tree to replace the original, though Davis promises to do them a half-inch better—the Institute will plant an 8.5" caliper beech when construction is completed.
The neighborhood and the Institute have settled into a peaceful coexistence. Davis, who edited the book Stories of Change: Narrative and Social Movements, says he saw the ordeal take three narrative shapes: 1) The Rogue Developer, 2) UVA-Related Organization as Rogue Developer, and finally 3) the Institute as Restorer and Protector of Watson Manor.
Dougald sounds like she’s come around to the final narrative. “We hope the poor little Queen Anne house will come to life again,” she says. “The building itself was falling apart.”
So what does a 150-year old beech cost these days? In addition to the $5,200 in fines and neighborhood reparations, the Institute received a $15,000 bill to clean, prune, reinforce, cut down, and eventually haul away the tree. As for the beech, no one seems to know what’s become of it. “We were so mad,” Dougald says, “we didn’t even ask.”
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