The meeting place was shady, but the remarks were fiery, with one of Baltimore’s foremost tree advocates denouncing Johns Hopkins University’s plan to cut down more than 90 oaks, elms and other species – 27 of them on public property – as part of a construction project on its Homewood campus.

“Don’t kid yourself. A young sapling at two inches in diameter is no match for trees of this size and the amount of benefits they’re providing,” said arborist Amanda Cunningham. “If these trees are replaced, it would take 50 years for them to reach this size to provide the benefits that they’re providing right now.”

“They can’t move, they can’t run away, they can’t talk. They give and give and give, and we need to speak for those trees,” said Cunningham, a member of the Baltimore City Forestry Board and founding member of the Baltimore Tree Trust.

Cunningham made her passionate plea at a gathering of more than 75 people assembled at the corner of Remington Avenue and Wyman Park Drive on Saturday to protest Hopkins’ planned removal of the trees for its new Data Science and Artificial Intelligence Institute (DSAI).

She had been asked to speak by residents of this North Baltimore neighborhood, who have been interacting warily with Hopkins over the last two years.

“There’s no place on the planet I love more than this little part of planet Earth,” said Gabriel Goodenough, a Wyman Park South community leader, calling Hopkins “a mega entity,” with whom his group has “had good collaborate experiences with until now.”

“They can’t just build whatever they want to build, no matter the effect it has on the environment or human beings,” Goodenough said, drawing applause.

Organizers said afterwards that they have delivered a letter, signed by more than 370 people, to Hopkins President Ronald Daniels protesting the tree cutting.

Opponents acknowledge that Hopkins can do what it wants with its own property – plans currently call for two four-story buildings encompassing 476,572 square feet of lab and office space.

But what residents primarily hope to save are nine Northern Red Oaks – 50-plus-year-old, city-owned street trees – that shade the sidewalk on the east side of the 3100 block of Remington Avenue, directly across from a block of rowhouses.

These oaks are not part of the building’s footprint but must be removed, university officials say, for a construction entrance.

Hopkins could spare the trees, the letterwriters argue, by using the existing entrance on Wyman Park Drive, where 18 hybrid elm trees – younger specimens, planted on city land by Hopkins about a decade ago – are also slated for removal.

“We’re talking about a temporary entrance,” exclaimed Hillary Gonzales, one of the event organizers, who urged attendees to contact Mayor Brandon Scott, Council President Zeke Cohen, and Recreation and Parks Director Reginald Moore in protest.

Residents recalled a March 25 meeting where a representative from Whiting-Turner Contracting Company, the project’s construction manager, acknowledged that the entrance could be located at an alternate spot on the east side of the lot.

But the representative reportedly said that doing so would slow down construction by forcing the project to be phased differently.  The residents’ takeaway was that relocating the entrance was a matter of convenience and not necessity for Hopkins.

Also on the chopping block as part of the DSAI project are two large oak trees – each estimated to be more than 100 years old. Residents want the university to spare them by changing the new building’s footprint.

Another demand in their letter to Daniels is move one of the two buildings further back from the steep slope of the Stony Run stream valley.

Residents say the change would both save trees and reduce the project’s impact on a fragile wooded area. (This is the DSAI project’s north building, to be located where the Early Learning Center now stands bordering Wyman Park.)

Attendees at the “Picnic to Protect Our Trees” event said they value the trees not just for their beauty, but for the way they contribute to cleaner air and lower temperatures in their neighborhood.

“We all hate this. It’s horrible,” said Raissa Snyder. “It goes against all the values an institution of higher education should absolutely have in this era of climate change. ”

Hopkins Promises “Rich Canopy”

Hopkins’ response to the Saturday protest and letter to Daniels stressed its replanting plans along Remington Avenue, around the new buildings and elsewhere. The DSAI project website promises 424 new trees in all.

“The university will be planting hundreds of new and native trees as part of this project,” said a university statement sent to The Brew by media relations director Doug Donovan.

The statement noted that the university “has taken precautions to protect the champion tree located on city property at the intersection of Wyman Park and San Martin drives, working directly with city planning to ensure its safety.”

Since the project was announced in 2023, Hopkins says it has held 14 community meetings.

“We have made various adjustments to the project based on community feedback, including shortening the length of the building on Remington Avenue and setting the building back farther from the street,” the statement said.

“This will allow for several new layers of trees in addition to the trees that will be replaced between the Remington Avenue curb and sidewalk, resulting in a rich landscape and tree canopy between the new building and homes across the street,” the statement continued.

What about the contention that the nine mature oaks could be saved by relocating the construction entrance?

“We considered multiple options for access to the construction site, but other possibilities would have caused significant disruption to existing traffic patterns and extended the duration of the project by up to 10 months,” the email stated.

It noted that the construction entrance on Wyman Park Drive, between Remington Avenue and Carnegie Way, “is going to continue to be used as an access point.”

City-wide benefits from the project during the pre-construction and construction phase include “close to 5,000 jobs in Baltimore with an estimated economic impact of over $505 million for the city,” the statement said.

Construction is expected to be finished by 2029. At that point, Hopkins plans to recruit 80 new affiliated faculty “to support the institute’s pursuits, in addition to 30 new Bloomberg Distinguished Professors with substantial cross-disciplinary expertise.”

The project, whose pricetag has not been disclosed, represents Hopkins’ effort to stay on top of the fast-evolving world of artificial intelligence and to compete with universities that have already completed new buildings to further their AI research.

“The new institute will be a hub for interdisciplinary data collaborations with experts and students from across Johns Hopkins, working toward the application, understanding, collection, and risks of data, machine learning, and artificial intelligence systems across fields and disciplines,” the Hopkins’ DSAI project page says.

Its AI initiative, the school predicts, will fuel discoveries in a variety of fields, from neuroscience and precision medicine to climate resilience and sustainability.

The planned institute’s current configuration consists of two buildings along Remington Avenue, one on each side of Wyman Park Drive, connected by an overhead pedestrian walkway and an underground service tunnel.

“How do we stop this?”

At the Saturday meeting, a woman who came to learn more wasn’t sure which trees were in the project’s crosshairs. She was directed toward trees, some festooned with signs saying, “Shame on JHU!” and “Our trees, not yours,” and some simply marked with a red “X,” like many vacant structures in Baltimore.

“Why chop them down?” asked Emiko Ortega, a Hampden resident who likes to walk in the area. “Hopkins has enough money to purchase land in other parts of the city. Why do this here?”

A man with a young child in his arms asked, “Where are we in the process of being able to stop this, or to put a halt to this or reverse this?”

Gonzales noted that Hopkins has not yet applied for certain city permits. (The DSAI website notes that approvals will be needed from the Department of Public Works for storm water management, erosion control and other activities.)

Other aspects of the project have drawn criticism from the community, ranging from its impact on Stony Run wildlife and water quality to the years of traffic congestion and noise it will generate on Remington Avenue and beyond.

But Saturday’s focus was on the mature trees whose benefits over the next 20 years Cunningham enumerated as follows:

Absorbing pollution, soaking up water and returning it to the environment in the form of cool air, sequestering carbon equivalent to 6,000 miles of gas used by passenger vehicles.

“That’s if they are allowed to live,” she cautioned.

Could the loss of the trees’ cooling power, thereby resulting in higher electricity bills for air conditioning, be quantifiable and therefore something that Hopkins should compensate residents for?

Melissa Falen asked that question at one point during the meeting, later telling The Brew she doesn’t plan to stick around to find out or to watch small, replanted trees someday begin to regrow.

“I’m just trying to clean out my house so I can move,” said Falen, a retired Notre Dame of Maryland University coach and teacher who has lived on the 3100 block of Remington for 32 years.

When she first moved there “it was not unusual to hear gunshots,” but these days “it’s become a wonderful neighborhood, a wonderful community.”

But with construction likely to drag on for years, Falin said, “it’s going to be awful” and she’s getting out.