There’s a feud over a tree in a backyard in San Francisco.

There are lawyers and restraining orders. The tiff is so contentious that multiple city agencies have gotten involved and city panels have twice deadlocked on whether it should be landmarked or allowed to be cut down. One side even consulted a shaman on the other side of the world.

The tree is a tall and slender pine — arborists can’t agree on its species.

Its saga started in April when the new owner of a single-story Italianate house on Cook Street in the Inner Richmond cut down three trees in his backyard — two palms and one of two pines — as part of a plan to redevelop his property. The trees were old and massive, and the pines could be seen across the neighborhood. The owner didn’t warn neighbors they would be cut down — not even the tenants living in the carriage house in his backyard.

“He told us we had to move the car because he was going to be landscaping,” said Levi Leavitt, the founder of a private high school in Los Altos who lived in the carriage house with his wife, Jen, a personal trainer, and their two children. “We moved our car, and then one day the crew with him started chopping them down.”

In June, terrified that the owner would cut down the remaining pine tree, which stands about 100 feet tall, the Leavitts and a couple living two houses down secured a 90-day restraining order from the Public Utilities Commission prohibiting its removal. They then began the quixotic task of getting it landmarked, over the owner’s objections.

Only 16 trees in San Francisco have been individually conferred landmark status, because they are historic, old or especially important to the environment. Cutting them down is punishable by jail time.

The Leavitts and their allies emphasize that they feel property owners should have final say over their land 99 percent of the time. But they also believe cutting down the remaining pine, which is estimated to be around 100 years old, doesn’t fall into that category.

“These trees have been an important part of the landscape of the street and the history of the entire property,” said Vanessa Ruotolo, who has lived in the neighborhood for 17 years. “They are beautiful trees. They tower over all our gardens. The birds constantly sing.”

The property owner, of course, has a much different story.

“All I wanted to do was move from a condo to a house, and it’s not been a lot of fun so far,” said Dale Rogers, a technology consultant who bought the house in 2012. “I’m just trying to live my life, and it’s gotten very complicated.”

Lawyer’s argument

Rogers didn’t want to talk about it, though, referring questions to the special tree and neighbor law specialist he hired. That attorney, Barri Bonapart, said the pine tree posed problems for the home’s infrastructure, and furthermore, was dangerous.

She referenced a 2014 incident in which a massive pine cone fell on the head of a man napping at San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park. The man sued the park for $5 million, claiming he had suffered brain damage.

“It’s a lovely tree. It’s just in the worst possible place,” Bonapart said. “That type of tree belongs in open space and not within feet of the home’s foundation and people and passersby.”

Bonapart declined to say how Rogers wants to develop the property, calling the question “sort of irrelevant.”

For a tree to be landmarked, it has to be first nominated by either the property owner, a member of the Board of Supervisors, the Historic Preservation Commission, the Planning Commission, or a San Francisco city agency or department head.

Tree ‘advocate’

The Leavitts and their neighbors contacted city officials to see if anyone would nominate the pine. Planning Commissioner Dennis Richards agreed.

“It’s like the tree has no representative,” Richards said. “It can’t say, ‘Hey, don’t cut me down, I’m historic.’ I was the advocate for the tree.”

The Planning Commission voted 4-3 to recommend landmarking the tree.

The issue was forwarded to the city’s Urban Forestry Council for a final decision. Usually, the council’s tree landmark subcommittee makes a recommendation, which the full council then follows. But the committee deadlocked 2-2 in July.

On one hand, the committee experts noted, the tree meets certain conditions regarding size and historical relevance. In addition to its towering height, there appears to be a reference to the tree in the book “Here Today: San Francisco’s Architectural Heritage.” The book indicates that trees on the property were brought from the historic Lone Mountain cemetery and planted by George J. Smith, a director of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows fraternal organization. And the carriage house next to the tree is a “Type A — Historic Resource,” committee reports conclude.

But whether the tree is culturally relevant or rare — that’s up for dispute. The arborist hired by the landmark proponents believes the tree is a Cook Pine, one of only a handful in the city. The arborist hired by the property owner believes it’s a Norfolk Pine or a hybrid, trees that aren’t all that special or rare.

“It’s a much ado about not a lot,” said Larry Costello, a tree expert and former member of the Urban Forestry Council whom the property owner hired as a consultant. Costello’s assessment: “It’s a decent-sized tree. But it’s not rare. In California, there are lots of them, mainly along the coast.”

Costello also thinks it’s bad business to landmark a tree over a property owner’s objections. It’s been done only once before, in 2014, when Corona Heights’ residents and Supervisor Scott Wiener successfully petitioned for the landmarking of a redwood tree to stop a developer from cutting it down. Ironically, the developer later dubbed the property “Sequoia House” and sold it for $2.6 million.

Costello, however, said making a practice of it could lead to “unintended consequences” — property owners cutting down trees to avoid a potential landmark attempt by a neighbor.

Dozens of people showed up to the Urban Forestry Council meeting in January and spoke in emotional terms about how much the tree meant to them. But the council was divided. It tied, 5-5, on landmarking the tree. The tree supporters secured another 90-day restraining order.

The question of the tree was sent to the Board of Supervisors for a decisive vote. But Supervisor Mark Farrell sent the issue back to the Urban Forestry Council to try again. That hearing is scheduled for Friday morning.

Couple quit fight

Jen and Levi Leavitt have left the fight to their former neighbors. In February, property owner Rogers paid them tens of thousands of dollars to vacate the carriage house, according to Rogers’ attorney. A stipulation of the contract was that they could no longer be publicly involved in the tree dispute.

But they haven’t stopped thinking about it. They showed a picture of it to a shaman in Indonesia and asked about its future. She told them there are multiple spirits living in the tree. They wondered if the spirits were of the other trees that had been cut down.

Emily Green is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: egreen@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @emilytgreen