Volusia County says Glenwood trees are safe

BEACON PHOTO/PAT HATFIELD
Not my trees – Clinton Van Cleef of Glenwood points to trees his grandfather planted in the Grand Avenue median in Glenwood many years ago. He and other Glenwood residents don't want the trees or median destroyed to make way for the Spring-to-Spring Trail.

BEACON PHOTO/PAT HATFIELD
Cause for alarm — The sight of county survey workers like these made many Glenwood residents worry the county is ready to tear up the median and remove trees to build a section of the Spring-to-Spring Trail. That won't happen, County Engineering and Construction Director Gerald Brinton said. A survey of current conditions is under way.

BEACON PHOTO/PAT HATFIELD
Tracking the trees — Glenwood resident Clinton Van Cleef looks at a tag placed by surveyors on one of Glenwood's historic trees.

IMAGE COURTESY COUNTY OF VOLUSIA
Spring-to-Spring Trail — This map, prepared last year, shows the route of the trail from Gemini Springs in DeBary north to DeLeon Springs. The section north of Glenwood is now complete. So is the section that runs from DeLand to Glenwood's south side. The question is: How will the two segments be connected?

BEACON PHOTO/PAT HATFIELD
DeLand's trail — This section of the Spring-to-Spring Trail, photographed near Plymouth Avenue, runs along the west side of Grand Avenue between Minnesota Avenue in DeLand and Glenwood.

Spring-to-Spring Trail won’t plow through median

By Pat Hatfield
BEACON STAFF WRITER

posted Nov 1, 2009 - 10:25:42am

Emotions have been running high in Glenwood recently, as residents watched survey crews work up and down Grand Avenue.

Workers measured and tagged trees in the avenue’s gracious median, the pride of Glenwood.

Did all this mean the County of Volusia was getting ready to bulldoze the trees or pave the median, whose large live oaks frame and shade the country road?

“You might find me chained to a tree if they start cutting,” Clinton Van Cleef said.

Van Cleef is a fourth-generation Glenwood resident.

He doesn’t want the median paved over for the sake of the Spring-to-Spring Trail Volusia County is building to run from Gemini Springs in DeBary all the way to DeLeon Springs State Park.

Portions of the trail north and south of Glenwood are built. The question is how to construct the trail through the peaceful unincorporated town.

Like Van Cleef, Noelle Harris is nervous about the fate of the trees.

She said the sight of surveyors at work has upset many area residents.

“This is historic,” she said, gesturing toward Grand Avenue and the tree-studded median. “We don’t want the trees cut down.”

County Engineering and Construction Director Gerald Brinton said there are no plans to remove the trees. A survey of current conditions is under way.

Crews working along Grand Avenue, Brinton said, are determining where trees are located in the median, where mailboxes and trees are located alongside the road, and where the edge of Grand Avenue’s roadway lies.

Grand Avenue in Glenwood is the missing piece in the Spring-to-Spring Trail . The trail begins at Gemini Springs in DeBary and will continue up the west side of Orange City, along Lake Beresford, up Grand Avenue to Glenwood, then to DeLeon Springs.

The Spring-to-Spring Trail is part of a larger trails program. At some point in the future, the trail will run past Lake Monroe into Brevard County to the south, and north through Flagler County to St. Augustine.

The section through Glenwood has been on hold, while county engineers try to find a way to continue the bicycle-and-hiking trail with the least impact on the median, and with the fewest possible residents upset.

County staff members will present several alternatives to Glenwood residents at a meeting with the Glenwood Civic Association at 7:30 p.m. Monday, Jan. 18, at Glenwood Presbyterian Church.

If things go smoothly, work on the Glenwood section will begin next summer.

Solutions outside the box

One concept for the Glenwood section is to divide the trail: running one half on one side of the median, and the other half on the other. This would require a curb to separate motor traffic from trail traffic, and a gutter. This plan also would remove some of the median and threaten some trees.

A new idea Brinton and his staff are working on is to take one lane of Grand Avenue and make it into the trail. Vehicular traffic in both directions would then travel on the other side of the median.

At 16 feet wide, Grand Avenue’s lanes are each about 4 feet wider than average. By using some of the right of way alongside the road and some from the median where needed, one lane of Grand Avenue could be transformed into two lanes for motor traffic.

“That will mean a whole lot less impact to the median,” Brinton said. It would also be safer for hikers and bicyclists to have motor traffic and foot traffic separated by the wide median.

Brinton said he understands Glenwood’s concerns, and would feel the same if he lived there.

Nothing is set in stone, he emphasized. Before any decisions are made, he wants plans vetted publicly and community consensus built. That’s what he hopes to do at the January meeting.

Glenwood Civic Association President Wilma Allen said the county has been good about sharing information, but the survey has alarmed a lot of residents.

“I try to tell people not to get so heated about it,” she said. But Allen, too, wondered if trees would soon be coming down.

She wants the trail completed, but worries what it will do to Grand Avenue.

Clinton Van Cleef said he’s not against the trails. He loves to bicycle and loves the outdoors. He understands why people would want to use the trail through Glenwood, and also understands why others don’t welcome the trail.

Van Cleef’s great-grandfather, Elmer Squires, built in Glenwood before the turn of the 20th century. Clinton Van Cleef’s grandfather, also named Clinton Van Cleef, was a horticulturist with a degree from the University of Florida, and he planted many of the trees in Glenwood’s median. His son, Elmer Van Cleef, the current Clinton’s father, earned a degree in forestry from the University of Florida, and planted more trees.

Elmer just passed away in May.

Clinton lived in Orlando as a child, but spent summers in Glenwood. He remembers his great-aunt Alice Van Cleef on a riding mower, cutting grass in the median. That was before the county took it over.

— pat@beacononlinenews.com

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