Two decisions at city council's last planning and environment committee meeting are worth noting. For a council that has been accused of shooting before it aims, both exhibit a surprising level of caution.

One had to do with the house and West Side property that are part of the late venerable architect Abe Rogatnick's estate.

The other, which I will deal with first, concerns a 107-year-old tulip tree at 1245 Harwood St. in the West End. It's a common enough species in Eastern deciduous forests of North America. In Vancouver, where you can find a tree hugger behind every bush, Liriodendron tulipifera is a rare and cherished species, or so we have been led to believe.

Council was asked to consider allowing a developer--represented by Bing Thom's firm of architects--an additional six storeys on a 12-storey building in exchange for not axing the tree. The value of the bonus was estimated at about $4 million. According to city planner Brent Toderian, that would be roughly equivalent to the additional cost the developer would incur to develop underground parking without taking out the tree.

But there was a snag worthy of King Solomon. While the tree was on the property to be developed, 40 per cent of the root ball was on the adjacent property. The neighbouring property owner wouldn't guarantee that, should they develop their property, the tree would remain unharmed.

Denis Bouvier was one of a number of people in a no-win situation. From his fifth floor condo two doors away at the corner of Harwood and Jervis, Bouvier can now see the tree and the heritage house that occupies the property.

If council agreed to the developer's request, the new tower would block Bouvier's view of the tree and the heritage house. If council refused to give the density bonus, the tree would probably come down.

Council, in fact, turned down the request because it could not gain full legal control over the whole tree. There was no guarantee that if council granted the bonus, development on the adjacent property wouldn't kill the tree.

The decision regarding Rogatnick's house and property was equally perplexing. Rogatnick left the profits from the sale of that property to three respected art institutions: Emily Carr University of Art and Design, the Jack and Doris Shadbolt Foundation and the Contemporary Art Gallery.

Rogatnick's estate trustee and lawyer Gerrit Te Hennepe applied to council to have the property reclassified so it could be subdivided into two lots. As he bluntly stated, it would be worth more and that would put more money into the hands of the benefactors.

After the lawyer spoke, representatives from the three institutions made their pitch. Nobody needs reminding that the arts have had funding cuts from all quarters recently. And this is a council that professes a soft spot for the arts.

Vickie Potter, the city staffer handling this issue, alerted council to the fact that while in most years there are two requests for these kinds of subdivisions, in the past few months there have been seven. A reflection, one must assume, on the shortage of land available for development.

Rolling over on the Rogatnick property, the majority of council concluded that saying yes could lead to a stampede of landowners seeking to divide and profit without considering the consequences for their respective neighbourhoods.

So council, except for the NPA's Suzanne Anton, said no.

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Speaking of trees and unusual requests, check out www.stickshiftproject.com. Some urban guerrillas engaged in "a collaborative act of urban transformation" are asking us to imagine Vancouver without fossil fuels as they've pulled the engines out of four cars and replaced them with soil and fruit trees then parked the licensed vehicles on city streets.

agarr@vancourier.com