Home Depot Presents Plan To Replace Trees On Derby’s Main Street

Plans call for trees and shrubs to be planted to spruce up Home Depot property along Derby’s Main Street.

DERBY — A plan to restore a bunch of trees that were unexpectedly removed in late summer in front of Home Depot could be on track for spring.

The Planning and Zoning Commission at its Dec. 15 accepted a site plan from Woodbridge Engineer Rob Pryor, who is representing Home Depot.

When Derby approved the construction of Home Depot, it put a requirement on the approval saying the company had to get permission from the city to alter its landscaping on Main Street. However, that slipped through the cracks earlier this year when a row of trees were cut and removed.

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Pryor presented the commission with two replacement options, one which pretty much mirrors a previously approved plan by the commission in 2003. The main difference, Pryor explained, is that the Eastern white pine trees originally planted have been substituted for an alternative type of evergreen tree.

As (Eastern white pines) get larger, they tend to get some die-off in the bottoms of the trees and interior of the tree itself, so screening gets less effective as the tree gets larger,” Pryor said. They are also subject to wind damage as they get larger, and drop limbs in significant wind events. We have proposed a different type of evergreen that doesn’t have those negatives.”

One of the proposed plans also incorporates a six-foot tall screen fence, which Pryor said would create an immediate benefit and screening of the loading and parking area behind Home Depot, located at 117 Main St.

The plantings will take some time to mature,” said Pryor. We’re putting in the same amount of trees that were taken out, but they’ll take several years to reach maturity, which is why we proposed immediate screening in the meantime.”

In addition to the evergreens, Pryor said the proposed planting plan also includes Red Maples, American Arborvitae, Cornelian Cherry Dogwood, Shademaster Honeylocust, Blue Point Juniper, Skyrocket juniper and Green Giant Arborvitae.

The city’s engineer, Ryan McEvoy, reviewed both proposals — one which has a fence with less tree cover, and the other with no fence and more tree cover/buffer, and made some suggestions that Pryor said he will incorporate in the final site plan for next month’s meeting.

No matter the case, McEvoy said the plantings can’t take place until spring.

The commission instructed Pryor and the landscaping company in charge of the planting, New England Landscaping & Trees Services, Inc., to come back to the commission’s January meeting with a full site plan for a possible vote.

Town/City Clerk Marc Garofalo urged that the tree plantings are done with the spirit of the original approval and that there’s a complete and appropriate buffer for green all year round.”

Home Depot’s backside faces Main Street, so the city required the company to put in the trees and bushes as a buffer. Any work performed in the buffer zone, which is also home to a Derby war monument, was supposed to come back to the commission for review. Commission Chairman Ted Estwan had said that was a condition of the approval set 20 years ago.

The commission after learning of the tree clearing put a stop to the work until a review of the restoration plan could take place. Estwan had said the property was once home to a Farrel’s manufacturing facility, and that contaminants were left in the ground but capped” by a membrane (a common practice). Estwan said whatever work is done there must take the protective membrane into account.

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