Environmental groups and developers are joining forces to save older trees during privatization work at McGrew Point and other areas. Andrew Shimabuku • The Honolulu Advertiser

The Circle is working with two private developers to make sure those World War II-era trees and other mature trees are protected.

"We wanted to say that Hawai'i is really special and should be treated differently than a privatization program in Kansas," Steiner said. "We feel our input has made a difference."

Developers said they were happy to work with the group.

"Preserving the tree canopy is one of our primary goals," said Thad E. Bond, senior vice president of Hawaii Military Communities LLC.

HMC has a 50-year contract with the Navy to modernize and manage nearly 2,000 homes in five Navy housing areas. In three of those communities, old homes will be torn down and replaced.

Ryan Mielke, spokesman for Actus Lend Lease, the California-based company that plans to modernize and maintain 7,800 U.S. Army housing units on O'ahu, said that although reconstruction work on Army projects is further off than the Navy projects, Actus, too, is working closely with the Outdoor Circle.

Preliminary work is scheduled to begin within a week at the Navy's McGrew Point, Bond said. Houses also will be razed and rebuilt at Halsey Terrace and Radford Terrace.

In all, 961 Navy homes will be demolished and 910 larger, more modern homes will be built to replace them.

"Right from the start," Bond said, "we hired arborists to be on our team. We have two landscape architects working with land planners and civil engineers to study each neighborhood."

About 1,100 trees in the three Navy neighborhoods will remain in place, Bond said.

Sidewalks will skirt them. Buildings will be aligned to avert them.

Before work gets started at Pearl Harbor's McGrew Point, orange construction fences will be installed around each of the designated trees to protect them, he said.

A subcontractor will be responsible for the care and watering of those trees during construction.

But that doesn't mean every tree will be kept, Bond said.

"In the landscape plan, there are trees that make sense and trees that don't," he said. "Those that don't will be sold or given away or otherwise removed."

Steiner of Outdoor Circle said about half the trees at McGrew will be removed, and around 45 percent of those at Halsey.

Mature monkey pod, plumeria, coconut and some of the ear pod are among the trees that will be saved.

"Trees that make Hawai'i Hawai'i," Steiner said.