SHERMAN OAKS >> Barry Cullison stared at a 3-foot-wide tree stump that once bore the weight of a pine at least six stories tall.

Across the historic Chase Knolls Garden Apartments where he lives, dozens of other mature trees were being cut down: eucalyptus, ficus, liquidambar, jacaranda, magnolia and more.

“It’s heartbreaking,” said Cullison, 70, a retired actor who has lived at the Chase Knolls complex for 21 years. “This can’t be undone. They’ve decimated the trees. The trees are coming down. And all we can do is listen to the chain saws.”

Chase Knolls tenants have been fighting to save the “garden” inside the garden apartments. But the owners of the complex at 13401 Riverside Drive have said they need to cut down trees and destroy 200 carports for new plumbing, power lines and other utility upgrades.

• RELATED STORY: Residents of historic Chase Knolls apartments challenge city on expansion

Residents have been fighting the changes. A tenant group tried to stop the tree removal by requesting an injunction, which was denied this month by a Superior Court judge. Separately, a civil lawsuit continues against Los Angeles that seeks to block the construction of hundreds of new apartments on the grounds that the city violated state environmental laws.

In the meantime, Chase Knolls’s owners are implementing a new landscaping plan that city planners approved last month. It allows 65 mature trees to be removed.

Neighbors say that another 27 trees that are being uprooted and moved in the 260-unit complex will likely die.

Just before Waterton Associates of Chicago bought the property three years ago, its former owner replaced roofs and rotted eaves, patched and painted the stucco exterior and refinished interior wood floors.

An onsite property manager for Waterton referred questions about recent tree removal and construction to a regional manager.

“At this time, we have no comment,” said Kurt Nelson, California regional property manager for Waterton Residential, in an email.

A city official in charge of the city’s Office of Historic Resources said he could not comment because of the pending land-use lawsuit against Los Angeles.

The 68-year-old Chase Knolls Garden Apartments complex was declared a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument in 2000 for being an ideal village of the postwar Garden City movement.

Residents say chopping down long rows of tall eucalyptus trees has opened their village to pollution from the nearby 101 Freeway.

• RELATED STORY: New owner for historic Chase Knolls Apartments in Sherman Oaks

Moreover, they said, the tree removals are a pretext for moving ahead with the approved construction of 141 apartment units in six three-story buildings. A three-story underground parking garage is also in the works.

“I think they’ve got their i’s dotted, their t’s crossed. We no longer have any champion with the city,” said Cullison, who helped lead the preservation battle.

His two-bedroom apartment overlooks a strawberry tree and an interior courtyard of jacarandas.

“We’ve affected nothing,” he said. “It’s still six buildings. It’s still 141 units.”

Designed by noted African-American architect Ralph Vaughn, Chase Knolls was built in 1949 on a former dairy farm in response to the San Fernando Valley population boom after World War II.

Since then, its garden apartments have been lauded for their sleek modern structures, tucked around lush courtyards within a large city block, with all car traffic, garage and storage relegated to the outer edges.

A former owner long ago announced plans to knock down the one- and two-story apartments, with wide eaves and case windows swinging out in the breeze, for condominiums.

But historic preservationists, backed by then-City Councilman Mike Feuer, helped get the garden apartments declared a city landmark.

Just over a decade ago, however, the City Council approved the addition of new apartment buildings.

Residents have expressed anger about a construction project they say will ruin the historic nature of the complex and bring traffic to a Sherman Oaks neighborhood now choked with cars.

They bemoan a loss of services, including carport parking and laundry rooms — without fair tenant compensation, they say — in addition to a rent increase of up to 10 percent for capital improvements, allowable under city rent-control rules.

The lawsuit, filed by Neighbors of Chase Knolls, calls for a new environmental study for the apartment expansion.

The city’s Cultural Heritage Commission, which recommended scaled-back landscaping and tree removal to conform with a 2006 environmental impact report, has also been named in the complaint.

Chase Knolls originally proposed replacing 138 trees.

The large trees that once provided shade and a buffer to freeway noise and soot, however, are being replaced by smaller varieties such as crape myrtle, residents say.

“It breaks my heart,” said Honey Anne Haskin, 63, a resident of more than two decades. “They’re destroying the historic-cultural monument.

“The trees are essential. The corrupt officials have done nothing to stop it. Every official and every city department has passed the buck.”