Two old, massive trees on Bethlehem's West Side are in the path of developers who keep coming back to build over their root systems.
Will you help us stop it?

We are two local teachers trying to protect them. Both trees — a Linden on Rauch St and a Willow on Eighth Avenue — have been there for generations. Unfortunately, their root systems extend onto the neighboring properties, which have already been the subject of several encroaching development plans — each of which could easily destroy these trees' root systems if they move forward.

We are not against development. We're against losing the very natural features we need for our health and our ability to afford to live in this city.

Every summer, we break a new heat record. This May, two elderly men died from heat exposure inside their own homes in Lehigh County during a heat wave. Our region just received an F grade for air pollution — one of the worst in the country. The Lehigh Valley has been ranked the most challenging metro area in America for people living with asthma. And still, when residents ask the City to protect the one thing helping us endure all of this — our trees — we get no real commitment, from a city that is supposed to have a Climate Action Plan.

Here's who pays the price when trees like these come down:

Our health and life expectancy — trees cool the air and filter pollution; national research directly links greener neighborhoods to longer lives.
All of us during a storm — tree roots absorb rainwater that would otherwise flood our streets and basements.
Every homeowner's wallet — mature trees lower cooling costs, reduce water usage, raise property values, and cut flood risk.
Urban wildlife — the Linden and Willow both shelter and feed local wildlife: squirrels, groundhogs, skunks, woodpeckers, cardinals, and blue jays nest and forage in their branches and roots, while their blossoms feed bees all season and their leaves host caterpillars for butterflies like the Viceroy and Mourning Cloak. Lose either tree, and a small ecosystem goes with it.
Our future generations — a tree this size can never be replaced, not in our lifetime or theirs.

The City of Bethlehem already has the power to stop this. The very purpose of zoning under state law is to protect public health, safety, and welfare — including the preservation of natural resources — not to permit overcrowding, added fire and flood risk, and the destruction of the natural features that make a neighborhood livable. Bethlehem's own subdivision ordinance gives the city real authority to attach protective conditions to development proposals affecting natural resources like these . And Pennsylvania's own Constitution, Article I, Section 27, makes the Commonwealth and its municipalities the trustee of our public natural resources, obligated to conserve them for this generation and the next, not permit their destruction.

We're asking the City of Bethlehem to commit to:

-No construction work within the Root Protection Zone of either tree, whenever and however new plans are proposed.
-A citywide tree preservation ordinance that extends this same protection to mature trees across Bethlehem, not just these two.
-A public, written commitment to actually use the authority it already has on this and every future application — not just when residents happen to notice and push for it.

If you can picture a Bethlehem where old, massive trees aren't a luxury only wealthy neighborhoods get to keep — where our air, our water, and our natural heritage are protected like our lives depend on them, because they really do — please sign. And just as important: share this with your neighbors, your family, anyone who has ever stood under a big tree on a hot day and felt the difference.

Let these trees be the example of how we want all mature trees to be protected in this city for future generations.