San Jose's Ebay plans to remove Redwood trees to make room for fire lane

SAN JOSE, Calif. (KGO) -- Ebay wants to remove 11 trees around it's new event center on Hamilton Avenue in San Jose for a fire lane and some neighbors are wondering if Ebay is overstepping its bounds.

Four of the Redwood trees require a permit for removal and at Wednesday's planning director's hearing at city hall officials approved for Ebay to move forward and cut them down.

But to get something, you have to give something back. Ebay and the city of San Jose agreed on planting 52 new trees around the sprawling campus. "And does that please the city to be able to plant more trees than are being removed. Sure it does, as long as there's room we're always more open to planting more trees on a site," San Jose planning official Steve Mcharris said.

Ebay said it has about 1,000 trees on its campus.

A spokesperson said they did not have a timetable on when the event center will be completed.

The public does have 10 days to appeal the permit approval.