SAN JOSE — To residents on quiet East Hills Drive, a gnarled oak tree perched atop a craggy rock formation is a source of neighborhood pride, an island of nature jutting out above the streets of an unincorporated subdivision.

But for a developer, it’s a limiter and a liability, taking up valuable real estate on a half-acre plot of land, and a potential accident waiting to happen. As he eyes the site for a teardown and regrade, neighbors are rallying to save their landmark.

“That’s what makes our neighborhood unique; that’s why people are so passionate about it,” said Dennis Burns. “It’s kind of nice to turn onto your street and see a little patch of nature.”

The 1950s home in the 14700 block of East Hills Drive in an unincorporated pocket of Santa Clara County was razed over the weekend, but plans to tear down the rocks and tree were stalled Monday when residents parked their cars in a way that prevented big hauler trucks from entering the site.

“It was supposed to be demolished today, but to just get a truck in there took an hour,” said longtime resident Israel Maldonado. “The developer came and told us to move the cars ‘or else’ because he couldn’t get the trucks in, and we said ‘That’s the whole point.'”

Gary King of Campbell-based GKI Construction and Development said the county told him he didn’t need a special permit to remove the wall and tree. But they were wrong, so he is now going through the required channels to do so — a process that will likely take at least four months.

King has openly told residents about his intent, and Maureen Behlen said he went as far as telling her that if she is so fond of the rocks, “he’d be happy to put them in my front yard.”

“I told him that if he tries to take it out, he will be met with some resistance,” Behlen said.

A worker with the demolition company who declined to state his name said he knew the project was trouble when he arrived at the site at 8 a.m. Friday to find someone had called the sheriff, saying that intruders were trying to break into the house.

Sheriff’s deputies were there again on Monday, issuing parking tickets to a construction supervisor who was parked facing the wrong direction and another for blocking a fire hydrant.

King said that while the current vision is to build a single-family home on the site, the lot’s 26,000 square feet could accommodate up to four such homes under the zoning code. The rock pile not only takes up space, but poses a liability risk because kids are fond of climbing on it and could potentially have a nasty fall, King said.

“Also, they were not originally there,” he said. “When they did the subdivision, in lieu of hauling all rocks away, they worked out a deal with the landowner to use them for the wall and give them some privacy.”

That’s something that Burns disputes — he said neighborhood old-timers can attest that the formation predated development.

King said that removing the tree will require an analysis by an arborist and planting a replacement.

Residents said they intend to fight any applications to remove the features, and county planners said the builder could be facing a tedious process, complicated by a potential right-of-way issue.

“You can’t just go and take something like that out,” said Jerry Guevara, a county inspector who visited the site Monday. “It’s going to be a big deal.”

King called it a “unique situation.”

“I’ve been in construction a long time, and a lot of people have the attitude that once they’ve lived somewhere for a while, it’s always hard when someone else wants to move in,” he said. “But if it was their property, they’d want to have their own property rights. If they really care about the rocks that much, they could have collectively bought the property to begin with.”

Contact Eric Kurhi at 408-920-5852. Follow him at Twitter.com/erickurhi.