About 16 downtown trees are coming down to make way for parking improvements around the new Salem police headquarters.

With development booming — from almost 200 apartments to a proposed $43 million hotel — Salem's downtown is seeing an uptick in demand for parking, city officials say.

Slated for removal are several trees along Division Street NE near Maps Credit Union and the site of the police headquarters, currently under construction.

Officials have identified "a handful" of trees that don't conflict with parking improvements between Liberty and High streets NE, and workers will try to keep four of 20 trees.

"We'll take precautions to preserve them," said Allen Dannen, assistant city engineer.

Eleven replacement trees will be planted along with the four that may be saved, Dannen said. Replacements will be chosen from the city's approved tree list.

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Still, Salem resident Michael Slater said the plan raises environmental concerns. "We can't address carbon emissions, rising temperatures, air pollution and flooding with parking spots but we can with trees," said Slater, who regularly keeps tabs on Salem city government.

"Their plan also contradicts the city's own efforts to make downtown livable and lively," he said. "This is a rare miss for an otherwise capable Urban Development Department."

Slater said if city officials want to address problems with parking, they could n expand existing parking garages. They also could educate people "that downtown is for walking," he said.

"The city and the Urban Development Department are concerned and sensitive to any loss of tree canopy in the city as well, and do not make recommendations or decisions about tree removal lightly," Urban Development Director Kristin Retherford said in an email responding to another area resident's concerns.

Retherford sent the email to the Statesman Journal after sending it to the resident.

"Housing and jobs in the downtown core are key to increasing downtown vibrancy, both economically and as Salem’s cultural and community center," she wrote.

New apartments and a proposed hotel near the Salem Convention Center "will draw more people into our downtown to live, to visit, to work and to play," Retherford said in the email.

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The former site of Salem's Nordstrom will at some point be occupied, she said, and a former Wells Fargo building downtown will be redeveloped, which will affect parking.

Furthermore, "the new police station will be providing visitor parking on-street rather than off-street," she wrote. "These changes in our downtown landscape will bring hundreds of regular new visitors and residents to our downtown and significantly increase demand for existing parking spaces."

Twenty parking spaces are expected to be eliminated with construction of the police headquarters because of traffic reconfiguration and bike lanes being added, she said.

"The current plan will replace the parking spaces that will be lost on Liberty Street with spaces on Division Street, and also add about ten new spaces to meet increased parking demand in the area," she said.

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"Adding these spaces to replace lost parking and meet new demand requires a choice between maintaining existing tree canopy, or meeting parking needs," Retherford said. "Without diminishing the value of existing tree canopy, street trees are a community asset that can be replanted and which will regrow over time."

Although "mature street trees" must be removed to make way for parking spaces, "there will be an overall net gain of trees in the neighborhood when the project is complete," Retherford wrote.

Dannen said city officials "are allowed to remove street trees such as these as required for projects or hazard abatement after a 15-day posting."

"However, as we do with many projects, we are presenting our plans to stakeholders in advance to provide information and get feedback," he said.

Email jbach@statesmanjournal.com, call (503) 399-6714 or follow on Twitter @jonathanmbach.

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