City-approved plans allow the removal of seven large oak trees to widen Blue Ridge Road and add a sidewalk.

Terry Stephens, development director for Creedmoor Partners, which is building Glenlake South, and neighbors want the city to approve alternative plans to preserve the trees.

It's a case, they say, where the city's one-size-fits-all approach just doesn't fit.

"We could go out there tomorrow and cut all the trees down and widen the road per the approved plans, but that's not the right thing to do," Stephens said.

Plans for Glenlake, which sits at the intersection of Blue Ridge Road and Glen Eden Drive, allow 49 single-family homes and and 13 townhomes, which the developer calls cottage homes, on about 28 acres in the first phase. Another 19 acres is reserved for future housing.

The neighborhood, with a lake and garden park, will be upscale. The cottage homes start at close to $700,000. Manor homes begin in the high $800,000-range. A few foundations are under construction.

The trees stand along Blue Ridge Road. Branches stretch over the asphalt, covering part of the road with a canopy of green in the spring and summer.

"To still have an area where you still get the feel of being out further than you actually are is special," said Melanie Wilson, who lives nearby. "You don't have that much around here."

Cutting down the trees, neighbors and Stephens say, would change Blue Ridge's character.

"They're just beautiful trees," Stephens said.

The city classifies Blue Ridge Road as a minor thoroughfare. And, as part of the plans, the city is requiring the developer to widen it to the required standards for a minor thoroughfare and add a five-foot-wide sidewalk.

Stephens said the sidewalk would be too close to the trees, which are 40 to 50 years old. They wouldn't survive, he said.

He has suggested eliminating the sidewalk or replacing it with the network of internal sidewalks in the development.

George Alexiou, a neighbor who works in transportation planning and engineering, has suggested making the street a few feet narrower than required, pushing the sidewalk far enough from the trees to save them.

Stephens said city officials will meet at the site this week.

Eric Lamb, manager of the city's transportation services division, said the city is interested in alternatives. Because the street is state maintained, the state also would have to sign off on any plan.

"We feel like tree preservation is a good idea," Lamb said.

Wilson, who is Wake County's planning director, said she called the developer when she saw the site was cleared, leaving few trees.

"The one saving grace was at least they left the canopy at the street," Wilson said.

Then, she learned that the trees also were slated to be cut.

"It gets to the point where you have to ask yourself when do you start allowing flexibility so that it fits in the urban form," she said. "As we have some of the more challenging areas of the city get developed, I think you will start running into this issue."

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