Arlington Residents Fear Housing Construction Threatens 200-Year-Old White Oak Tree

ARLINGTON, VA — Residents are growing concerned about the future of one of the oldest trees in Arlington’s Penrose neighborhood, a large white oak tree that could be as old as the United States.

The tree, in the backyard of a Penrose home that was recently put up for sale, likely survived the Civil War and could have been starting its life as a sprout in the late 1700s around the time of the Revolutionary War. White oaks tend to be slow-growers, with some having life spans of 200 to 300 years, and the oldest ones living for more than 500 years.

Located at the corner of South Veitch Street and 8th Street South, the white oak tree is not showing any signs of ill health, despite facing regular pruning to keep its branches away from electric wires and the impact of a 2012 sidewalk construction project on its roots, according to Penrose resident and botanist John Whiton.

"It would be a darn shame to lose it," Whiton said in an interview with Patch. "It represents history. The resiliency of this tree remaining here, even as it was disturbed by pruning, is amazing. It’s still vibrantly alive."

Neighbors are worried about the future of the tree when the home sells. Whiton, who lives about a block away, expects the home's new owners will tear down the existing house and may decide to cut down the oak tree to make room for a new home.

The home went on the market about a week ago and is likely to get many offers.

"This tree serves so much of the wildlife — birds, squirrels, other things that eat the acorns. It provides shade. It provides oxygen. You’d lose a lot if it were cut down," he said. "A lot of the white oaks in this Penrose neighborhood are probably offspring of this tree."

Whiton recalls at least two other white oak trees, likely even older than the one at the corner of South Veitch Street and 8th Street South, that the neighborhood has lost since he moved into the Penrose 20 years ago.

Preserving trees in the neighborhood is a "huge quality of life issue for me and my family," said Whiton.

The Penrose neighborhood runs from Columbia Pike to Arlington Boulevard, with Washington Boulevard and South Fillmore Street/Walter Reed Drive serving as its eastern and western borders.

With garden-style apartments, duplexes, townhouses and single-family home, Penrose enjoys a diversity of housing types. "This is a bucolic, quiet neighborhood, although crime is getting worse for sure," he said.

Whiton said there's a possibility he may consider moving if the number of trees in Penrose keeps shrinking and if the neighborhood becomes even more developed.

Along with providing cleaner air and shade, trees also have significant stormwater benefits at a much lower cost than engineering efforts that Arlington is undertaking in parts of the county to avoid flooding during heavy rain events exacerbated by climate change.

Estimates for the amount of water a typical tree can intercept in its crown, range from 760 gallons to 4,000 gallons per tree per year, depending on the species, according to a new study conducted by Green Infrastructure Center Inc. (GIC), a consulting firm based in Scottsville, Virginia.

The study, funded privately by Arlington residents, focused on tree canopy in the county and whether it has changed in recent years. The study concluded that the tree canopy in Arlington is smaller than it was in 2016.

Based on imaging from 2021, the study found that trees provide a canopy for 33 percent of land in Arlington, down from 41 percent on the same land six years ago. The study did not include imaging of Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport or the Pentagon complex.

On a national level, the study noted that recent data show urban and suburban tree canopy cover is trending downwards at a rate of about 175,000 acres lost per year, or about 36 million trees annually across the United States.

Tree canopy is a measurement that encompasses the layer of leaves, branches and stems of trees that shelter the ground when viewed from above. This measurement is expressed as a percentage of ground area that is covered by tree crowns, and relates to the branching spread of the trees.

In Penrose, the tree canopy covers only 23 percent of the land, below the county average, according to the GIC study.

Just across Arlington Boulevard from Penrose, the Lyon Park neighborhood has a tree canopy of 28 percent and the Ashton Heights neighborhood has a tree canopy that covers 31 percent of the land.

Only six out of more than 50 neighborhoods in Arlington have a tree canopy that covers greater than 50 percent of the land, according to the study. All of those neighborhoods are located north of Langston Boulevard, where there are mostly single-family homes.

Given the many important benefits of trees, Arlington County created a tree canopy fund about 15 years ago that plants trees on private property or offers funding for the maintenance of existing large canopy trees.

Whiton said he has taken advantage of Arlington's free tree program. "I feel like I’m trying to keep up with trees getting cut down by planting trees in my yard," he said.

Some residents worry that the Missing Middle Housing plan recently approved by the Arlington County Board will accelerate the loss of mature trees as developers seek to build both McMansions and multifamily dwellings on single-family lots across the county, leaving little chance for the survival of older, healthy trees.

Even with the tree replanting requirements included in the new Missing Middle plan, rezoning during a climate crisis would remove trees, replacements for which take 20 to 50 years to grow, according to Terri Armao, tree canopy coordinator and environmental chair of the Penrose Neighborhood Association.

Since 2012, Armao estimates that the Penrose neighborhood has lost about 300 trees — big trees, not small ones like redbuds and dogwoods. Many of the trees were lost due to the construction of the Washington Boulevard bike trail, she said.

"Climate change is not a future threat, it is a threat right now. We cannot afford to lose any more trees anywhere for any reason," Armao told Patch. "Bike trails, wider sidewalks, density and luxury housing will not save us from the looming disaster, but trees can help us mitigate the worst of what can happen."

While nature is something humans don't fully understand, "what should be understood is that a bigger house is not worth losing large, old trees like the white oak in Penrose that was starting life when George Washington was rowing the Potomac River," she stated.

Whiton said the old white oak tree at the corner of South Veitch Street and 8th Street South is probably healthy enough to live another 200 years.

"It's not only a resilient species, but it's a resilient specimen itself that's made it this far," he said.