Delray neighborhood worked together for the sake of one tree

Ornamental sausage tree planted decades ago has grown on residents

At the edge of a short dead-end street, at the bottom of a hill in the city of Delray Beach, a sausage tree grows 30 feet high, with red blossoms, green leaves and thick, sturdy vines.

It’s African in origin, ornamental to boot, a home for birds and iguanas, growing long oval fruit.

Michael Sebastian owns more than an acre and has plans to build homes. So he needed the street to continue, right through the tree. But all of the eight homeowners who live on the block want to see the tree live, preferably in the same spot.

“The tree should never have been there in the first place,” Sebastian said.

It sits on top of sewer lines and in the path of the road. It was improperly planted there, given that the city planned for the street “years and years ago,” he said.

But Sebastian isn’t the “big, bad developer” some residents see, he said. He’s an avid nature photographer and at first didn’t want the through-street, he said.

Oliver Buckton speaks for the tree, as

“This is symptomatic. Development is running amok at the expense of the environment.” Oliver Buckton, neighbor

does Josie Willis, and other residents who attended city meetings. “It’s a symbol of our neighborhood,” Willis said.

“This is symptomatic,” Buckton said. “Development is running amok at the expense of the environment.”

For them, the tree is one of the first things they noticed when they moved to Coconut Road. It brings a sense of nature and peace to their homes, they said.

They worried that plans to pave the whole road would create more traffic and ruin the tranquility of their homes. Sebastian made plans to put up a gate, but plans didn’t go through and instead the city said he needed to build a through-road that everyone can use, he said.

Amid all the confusion about what to do, some said cut the tree down. Others said move it, and still others said let it be. But after several meetings, a final talk between neighbors and Sebastian led to a compromise Thursday night.

Sebastian now will propose building a road around the tree and adding measures for traffic-calming as long as the city agrees, he said. And so, the sausage tree planted 40 to 50 years ago by John Ross Adams, a former city attorney, will keep its home on Coconut Road.

Delray Arborist Dave Paduda added that he believes it’s impossible to place a value on it or any tree. “For these people it has great value; for the developer it’s a cost.”

TAIMY ALVAREZ/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER Josie Willis, left, and Oliver Buckton were among the residents of Coconut Road in Delray Beach who spoke up for a tree, seen in the background, to prevent a developer from removing it from the end of their street.

TAIMY ALVAREZ/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER Coconut Road residents want to protect a tree at the end of their street from possibly being cut down to extend the road into a new development planned for the property.