The newest professional report on the woods behind the Village Green Community Center recommends cutting 43 trees, and it advises against adding new trees under the existing firs.
The forest has been there all along, uphill from the parking lot and the skate park and a short walk from the library on Dulay Road. The Village Green's own page on the woods puts it at almost six acres of forest with about a mile of walking trails. Several documents now lay out what the woods should become. Together they treat the forest as overcrowded and damp, and they set the plan's job as thinning it and helping the wet ground. The trails you walk this October still look much as they did before the plan existed.
What Is Under the Canopy Now
A consultant's 2023 inventory describes Douglas-fir forest with red alder, western hemlock and western redcedar in the upper layer, salmonberry and salal in the shrub layer, and sword fern and skunk cabbage closer to the ground. The skunk cabbage gives away what the paths don't. The district's Work Party in the Woods page says the forest holds "a complex network of streams and wetlands" that matter for water quality in Puget Sound. The same page says more than 70 bird species have been identified there, along with deer, coyote, raccoons, bats, reptiles and amphibians.
The trails themselves have no names. The district's master plan page says the mapped paths are longstanding routes from before the park district took ownership in 2012. They grew wherever people walked, which is why some of them simply stop.
The February 2026 forest assessment divides the woods into three parts:
- North Stand: the conifer forest west of the parking area, on the north side. Its western edge runs along the Skate Park.
- South Stand: the southern half of the same conifer block. Wetland buffer surrounds it, and the open patches south of it have the thinnest canopy in the park.
- Amphitheater Stand: the wooded area north of the parking lot.
Why the Arborist Advised Against More Trees
John Bornsworth is an ISA Board Certified Master Arborist with Peninsula Environmental Group. The Village Green Forest Assessment he prepared for the Village Green Metropolitan Park District is dated February 16, 2026. It recommends removing 43 trees across the stands to reduce risk to trail users and improve forest health. Twenty-six of those trees stand in regulated wetland or stream buffers. Kitsap County's critical-area rules require three replacement trees for each one removed there, so the memo calls for 78 mitigation trees.
The memo is just as specific about where those 78 trees should not go:
"Mitigation planting within Douglas-fir dominated stands is not recommended, as additional planting in these areas would result in a net loss of wetland function due to existing suppressed understory conditions and excessive stem density."
Every replacement tree in the plan is a red alder, planted only in open patches of wetland or wetland buffer where the canopy is already sparse, mostly south of the South Stand. The fir stands already hold more trunks than the ground can support, and the understory beneath them is suppressed. In those stands, removing trees is the planned improvement.
The memo makes two more recommendations that matter to anyone who walks these woods. It suggests selective pruning and thinning of madrone saplings along the western edge of the North Stand, by the Skate Park, so people can see farther into the forest. It also says invasive-plant removal should continue with a focus on English ivy and English laurel in the South Stand.
The Volunteers Got There First
The volunteer work and the arborist's memo point the same way. Peninsula Environmental Group's February 2023 invasive plant report lists Himalayan and evergreen blackberry, English holly, English and Irish ivy, English laurel, Herb Robert, Scotch broom and bull thistle in the park. According to the district, a volunteer task force formed in 2024 to restore a native plant community. By March 2026, the Village Green said volunteers had spent a year removing invasives and planting native trees and shrubs.
The work follows a seasonal pattern. Volunteers clear blackberry, holly and ivy in spring and summer "to make way for native planting in the fall." The October 2025 Master Plan Addendum says the vegetation strategy rests on the 2023 consultant report, adjusted by the volunteer coordinator to fit what crews can actually reach.
On a walk this fall, the volunteer work is the change you can see. It shows up as open ground where thickets used to be and new native shrubs getting started. The 43-tree list hasn't shown up in the district's minutes yet.
Paper, Funding and Ground
The master plan addendum by Fischer-Bouma Partnership, a Bainbridge Island firm, calls the woods "the Village Woods." It treats the edge between the developed lower campus and the forested upper half as the place where most activity would happen. That edge would hold a gateway, trails, public art, a spiral hill viewpoint, the community garden and a nature play area. Farther in, it proposes three interior zones: habitat preservation, wetlands and interpretation, and restoration and recreation.
The district's own records show which of these ideas have money or action behind them so far.
| Element | Where it comes from | What district records show through July 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Main gateway at the north end of the parking lot, beside the community garden | 2025 Master Plan Addendum | Proposed |
| Loop trails made by joining dead ends, and closing rarely used spurs | 2025 Master Plan Addendum | Proposed |
| Boardwalk for the loop that crosses the wetland | 2025 Master Plan Addendum | Proposed |
| Removal of 43 trees, with 78 red alders planted in open wetland or buffer patches | February 2026 forest assessment | Recommended; no removal recorded in the minutes |
| Higher bridge because of rising water | March 2026 minutes | Under consideration |
| Washington RCO grant application | March 2026 minutes | District "unable to submit" |
| Kitsap Health grant for trail improvements | July 2026 minutes | Passed for $22,000 |
The firmest item on the list is the $22,000 Kitsap Health grant for trail improvements. It appears in the July 21, 2026 commission minutes, under a forest and trails report from volunteer Kathleen Bullivant. The minutes don't say what the money will build. The water problem has more detail on record. The March 17, 2026 minutes note that the district was looking at raising the trail bridge "due to rising water." The addendum also says the site takes in a large amount of stormwater from the creek and from the swale along California Avenue, and it recommends a watershed study.
Both of the main problems in the woods are the same kind of problem. The fir stands hold too many trees, and the low ground holds too much water. The red alders, the boardwalk and the higher bridge all respond to that wet ground.
Using the Woods Between Now and the Next Meeting
Fall planting season is under way, and the woods page has listed work parties on the third Saturday of the month, with October 17 the latest date posted. If you want to join a future session, here is how the district's pages describe it:
- Check the Village Green Woods events page for the next listed date. Sessions have run from 10 a.m. to noon.
- Sign the volunteer waiver. You can download it ahead of time or sign one at the event, and anyone under 18 needs a parent or guardian's signature.
- Bring work gloves, boots or sturdy shoes, long pants and sleeves, garden tools and a refillable water bottle.
- Meet in the upper parking lot near the Village Green Community Center. Work parties happen rain or shine.
The site lists two contacts. The Work Party in the Woods page names Jenn Leach, and the Village Green Woods post names Dave Greene. That post also points anyone who would rather give money than dig to the Village Green Foundation, with gifts earmarked for the woods.
The decisions about tree removal, the grant and the boardwalk will be made at the Village Green MPD Commission. It meets on the third Tuesday of each month at 6:30 p.m. at the Village Green Community Center, 26159 Dulay Rd NE, with a Zoom option posted on the commission meetings page. Its October meeting was set for October 20, and the same schedule puts the next regular meeting on November 17. The September 15 agenda included a "Forest/trails revitalization update" tied to the master plan addendum. All six source documents, including the forest assessment, the 2023 tree risk assessment and Jenn Leach's 2025 restoration phasing plan, are posted in the Village Green Woods document library. The master plan itself is due for an update by 2028.
Many North Kitsap homes sit on wooded parcels with fir stands, wet ground and the same English ivy and laurel that volunteers pull at the Village Green. Our team knows these properties well, and if you are deciding what to do with yours, Mark Middleton Real Estate would welcome the chance to help. Request a private consultation.
