Save Bainbridge Trees withdrew its appeal at Kitsap Superior Court challenging the decision to allow the historic trees on Wyatt Way to be cut down.

This was done because Winslow Holdings (Tad Fairbanks, Bror Elmquist and Larry Sears) had submitted to the Bainbridge Island Planning Department a certified letter stating it was pulling its building application.

Elmquist stated that Winslow Holdings has hired a new architect and is considering incorporating affordable housing and the historic trees into the new design. He said at most a couple of black locust limbs would be removed as they reach into the property.

We hope the city this time will not require the new project design to have on-street parking as it had with the previous project.

That requirement was the trigger for the threat of removing the historic trees.

Save Bainbridge Trees founders Olaf Ribeiro, Mark West and Debbi Lester would like to thank everyone that helped raise the funds for the appeal.

The original hearing was a great moment which brought community members forward to testify in support of the historic trees – arborists, historians, an Island Treasure, and even the descendants of the first two families that owned the property where the trees were planted.

Thank you to those that testified: Bainbridge Island historian Barbara Winther; Community Forestry Commission member Sally Adams; arborists Ribeiro, Jim Trainer and Michael Oxman; Island Treasure artist Kristin Tollefson; former Washington Secretary of the State Ralph Munro; Nan Clinton, the granddaughter of John Robinson and Ella Mae Pratt; and Priscilla Callaham, the great-great-granddaughter of the first Winslow homesteaders Martha and Riley Hoskinson.

Debbi Lester

Save Bainbridge Trees