PITTSBURGH -- Squirrel Hill residents won a partial victory Thursday night in the battle to save their neighborhood's trees from being cut down.

There are approximately 31,000 trees lining Pittsburgh's streets, but more than 3,000 of them -- including about 500 in Squirrel Hill -- have been targeted as diseased and a possible danger.

"A lot of the same trees are on the same streets, have the same problems, and the bottom line is they are liabilities," said Mike Gable of the Department of Public Works. "There is a danger they could fall on a house, fall on a car, God forbid, fall on a person."

Barry Shields, of Squirrel Hill, said he and other neighbors wouldn't mind the trees being cut down, but only "if they were sure there was no other way of saving the trees."

So Shields and his neighbors got together and wrapped bands of green around nine trees targeted to be taken down on their street.

After a meeting on Thursday night, city officials said they would put a moratorium on cutting Squirrel Hill trees until the plan is explained further to neighbors.

The new plan does not save seven trees that the city considers to be very dangerous and need to come down.

Gable said he knows it's impossible to fully replace the giant trees. He said plans are in place to plant more than will be cut down.

"I can assure them, in the early spring, we will go around the city and plant street trees," Gable said.

Neighbors and city officials will talk more at a later date about how to appeal a tree on the cut-down list and how to request the planting of replacement trees where others are removed.

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