2019
-- Lore Croghan
An artist has stepped up to support activists who are fighting to save trees and historic design features the city plans to tear down in Fort Greene Park.
Oosterlaken told the Brooklyn Eagle the concept for her art installation started with a broad question: Who should be designing public spaces?
While doing random research, she wound up reading about the Parks Without Borders program and the controversy it sparked in Fort Greene. She sought out the Friends of Fort Greene Park to find out more about the issue.
“The main thing that was wrong was that people didn’t feel listened to,” Oosterlaken said she discovered. “I believe there are ways to change the park — but it shouldn’t be done this way.”
It’s an enormous illustration, inscribed with quotes from local residents about what the park means to them and what they think should and shouldn’t be done to change it.
“We need repairs. We should preserve the natural beauty of the park,” one inscription says.
Residents are dismayed at the Parks Department's plan to cut down dozens of old trees, pave over grass and greenery, and replace them with a concrete plaza.
Residents say the park is used for activities on a regular basis. They say the Parks Department has been working on a Parks Without Borders program that has not been transparent. Residents who live near Fort Greene Park say they have taken the city to court twice.
The first time, they say they demanded transparency from redacted paperwork concerning the state of the park and recommendations for changes. Residents won that lawsuit.
The unredacted report showed that the recommendations of the landscape architect were consistent with what residents want. That's why the Parks Department redacted it.
Now, they have filed a second lawsuit asking the city to conduct an environmental review of the impact of cutting down the trees and removing the grass. One person referred to it as a frying pan effect, because without the trees and all the cement, it's just going to capture heat.
-- Kendra Hurley
Of nine park-goers who said they lived nearby, seven had heard of plans to renovate the park, and only one expressed unambivalent enthusiasm about the changes. Other opinions included “They should leave the park alone” and “They’re trying to throw us out of the park.”
“I’ve been here over 50 years, and now they want to take down the trees and do changes,” said a man walking his bike between the mounds. Terri Ball, who has family in the Whitman houses, said she’s happy about the repairs, but hates to see those grassy mounds go. “I’ve attended two or three weddings on the mounds,” said Ball.
-- Kevin Duggan
The city wants to destroy a total of 83 trees, , 52 to make way for a grand paved plaza
according to Fletcher, who said the felled trees will be largely replaced by a so-called “understory garden”
An attorney for the plaintiffs accused Fletcher of trying to help the city dodge a transparent environmental review, saying if the city was so interested in creating an ecological wonderland, their laywers might have mentioned the vaunted understory garden during oral arguments held last month.
Please Leave a Comment to Speak for Our Trees!
Terminology: understory layer in a rain forest diagram.
The rainforest understory layer lies between the canopy and forest floor. (source)
-- Richard Giacovas
The New York City Department of Parks and Recreation says they want to remove 83 trees in Fort Greene Park in Brooklyn, in order to make room for a brand new park. But those living nearby are fighting in court to keep the trees around.
-- Anna Quinn
Environmental activists say a $10.5 million revamp of Fort Greene Park is a radical change that will forever shift the park's historic character. But, according to the city, the renovation is just their standard maintenance.
"The parks department should not be allowed to escape the procedural requirements," Richard Lippes, the Sierra Club's attorney, told a judge. "(The environmental study) does not mean that the work will not happen — what it means is they have to do an environmental assessment…the environmental impact statement is a consideration of alternatives that was not done here."
Georgette Poe, who lives in the Walt Whitman Houses, said the parks department barely reached out to NYCHA complexes that border the portion of the project that will go under construction.
"They didn't even get to know us," Poe said. "How dare you come into our neighborhood park and change it all."
-- Lore Croghan
The city’s redesign of Fort Greene Park calls for a plaza with 13,300 square feet of impermeable paving to replace grass mounds designed by artist A.E. Bye.
Lippes included a Parks Department flyer in his court filings that says, “A large, healthy tree removes almost 70 times more air pollution each year than a small, newly planted tree.”
The Parks Department’s plan to cut down 83 trees “shows the City of New York does not care about how they will affect people in black and brown communities,” one of the supporters, Georgette Poe, told the Brooklyn Eagle. “They want to make Fort Greene Park look like Washington, D.C., with paving and a monument,” said Poe, who lives in the Walt Whitman Houses. “We’re Brooklyn. We need our shade.”
-- Amanda Ottaway
The Friends accuse New York City of not being transparent about its planning process, unnecessarily cutting down trees, and skipping an environmental impact study. They’re seeking an injunction on the work until the city complies with the State Environmental Quality Review Act, or SEQRA.
Richard Lippes, the Sierra Club lawyer representing the Friends, called the proposed changes “a radical change of character of the park.” Lippes argued that the city misclassified the type of project it’s planning for the estimated $10.5 million renovation
-- Martin Samoylov
Opponents are concerned that the changes will alter the character of the park by removing trees and green space and making it a place for events and vendors, instead of local residents.
"just in terms of climate change, the removal of so many trees in an area that’s got a high asthma rate seems indefensible.
Their renderings showed vendors. So it’s likely they see it as a revenue-producing plaza for events which the Parks Department does all over the place. They charge a rent for special events,” said Braun. “It’s not the use that the park users currently have. People use this part of the park for their family gatherings, their church events, their picnics, their barbecues. It’s their backyard and by redesigning it, it gives the message to the current users that it’s not for those traditional neighborhood uses.”
-- Lauren Cook
A state Supreme Court judge will hear arguments Thursday on whether a redesign of Fort Greene Park, which includes the destruction of more than 80 mature trees, should include an environmental impact study.
“Friends of Fort Greene Park agrees that this part of the park has been neglected, and we do very much support real repair and upgrades like lighting so kids can play basketball after dark, that sort of thing,” Braun said. “What we understood was that this design was a take it or leave it. That the Parks Without Borders [initiative] has strings, and either we accept the design or the money goes away. And that’s been the problem.”
Even though we NYers live in the quintessential urban environment--and all that goes along with city dwelling--when someone messes with our nature, we get pissed and we rally. That’s just what’s been going on in Brooklyn’s Fort Greene Park, where the Parks Department --many say needlessly--plans to destroy dozens of mature trees as part of a $10.5 million (for now) redevelopment plan. And, as true with much of the de Blasio administration’s actions, a lot has been going on behind the scenes, with the public often the last to know. So, what’s really going on and why? With me is Ling Hsu, president of the Friends of Fort Greene Park (FFGP) & current chair of the Fort Greene Association and Lucy Koteen, a member of both organizations; they are also plaintiffs in a Sierra Club lawsuit against the city’s Parks Department.
-- Anna Quinn
The city didn't follow a landscape architect's recommendations in their renovation plans for Fort Greene Park and then tried to hide those recommendations from the public
"We couldn't help but wonder what the text under all those black splotches said, and why the Parks Department would not want us to see it," attorney Michael Gruen said. "The more adamantly they refused, the more curious we became. In the end, we learned that the report gave sensible advice — and Parks refused to follow it."
"The recommendations from an expert of Nancy Owens' caliber are in line with community feedback.," FFGP President Ling Hsu said. "Over 500 petitioners have said all along to repair, not to pave over greenery with a hardscape plaza for commercial events in our beloved park."
-- Israel Salas-Rodriguez
The restitution of planting new trees costs around $1 million, but the new trees have a high die rate.
"That’s what we’re here for. We want the politicians, elected officials to tell the parks department to work with the community and design a solution that’s really beneficial to the community."
-- Noah Manskar
The ruling marked a victory for Friends of Fort Greene Park, which is fighting the city's planned overhaul of part of the park's north side along Myrtle Avenue.
"They appear to have some reason for not wanting us to see what they've blacked out in the report," said Michael Gruen, the attorney who represented the group in the case.
The 2015 report was created by landscape architecture firm Nancy Owens Studio. At about 150 pages, it appears to include the park's history and conditions along with cost estimates for revamping sections of it, Gruen said. But its full contents are unknown because about a third of it was initially redacted, he said.
Tuesday's ruling came as Friends of Fort Greene Park pursues another lawsuit demanding an environmental review of the renovation. Gruen said the Owens Studio report was the basis for the Parks Department's conclusion that it did not need to do an environmental review for the project.
-- Lore Croghan
Activists won a round in their legal battle against a city plan to remove 58 mature trees from Fort Greene Park.
Appeals court judges decided Tuesday that the city Parks Department must give the Friends of Fort Greene Park an unredacted report about a $10.5 million redesign of the historic public recreation area.
In response to a FOIL request by the activist group, the city agency had delivered a heavily censored version of the Fort Greene Park Historic Resource and Management and Operations Study.
the community activists say the park’s redesign will cause environmental harm to their neighborhood because large trees absorb almost 70 times more air pollution each year than small, newly planted trees — a statistic they say they got from a bulletin published by the Parks Department about the benefits of street trees.
-- Anna Quinn
As their lawsuits make their way through the court system, the group trying to stop a controversial renovation of Fort Greene Park will try another method of getting the word out about the plan.
The plaza will pave over an estimated 13,314 sq. ft. of open greenery and move the popular barbecue area away from nearby luxury high rises
We had no recourse but to sue to seek transparency and accountability.
From the beginning of the approval process, Parks repeatedly made misleading public statements about the number and condition of trees to be cut down. Public meetings presented an illusion of soliciting community input, but none of the suggestions and feedback from residents was ever taken into consideration. The community was very clear about wanting needed repairs and retaining current amenities, but the Parks Department gave the message: Accept the design changes or get no funding at all.
-- Jonathan Hilburg
Arthur Edwin (A.E.) Bye's stone-and-grass mounds ... have served as gathering spaces, shaded picnic areas, and interactive climbing features since their installation. ... A $10.5 million renovation and a “grand new entrance” to the park would scrap that.
“Despite community outcry, the Parks Department is proceeding with plans to cut 58 park trees, and to bulldoze popular landscape features in the historic park,”
“In addition to removing scores of trees, the Parks Department plan would also demolish a picnic area and rolling landscape mounds that are popular with neighborhood families. In what neighbors see as a scandalous act of social engineering, the Parks plan would relocate the leafy picnic grounds to a new, and more exposed site across the street from an existing NYCHA building, and away from the planned luxury high-rise.”
-- Kevin Duggan
Friends of the Fort Greene Park teamed up with the national environmental advocacy group the Sierra Club to sue the Parks Department this month for allegedly avoiding the State Environmental Quality Review Act, which would have spotlighted the green space’s importance to the community, according to a high-profile lawyer for their case.
“We believe the Parks Department tried to avoid doing an environmental impact statement that would shine a light on the history, tradition, and enjoyment of the park and the surrounding community that would be lost,” said Sierra Club’s attorney Richard Lippes, who has fought for decades against improper developments upstate and across the country.
“They’re making a very important decision with an environmental impact and that’s the one that they won’t allow us to see,” said Gruen, who also heads up the City Club of New York.
-- Scott Rapoport
-- Lore Croghan
The case of the Friends of Fort Greene Park versus the Parks Department hinges on whether the agency hired Nancy Owens Studio, a landscape architecture firm, as a consultant.
The judges repeatedly asked, “Where is the contractual agreement?” But Druker insisted other documents in the case file provide proof the studio acted as a consultant.
A decision in the Parks Department’s favor could discourage other people from suing the government over its handling of FOIL requests.
A decision in favor of Friends of Fort Greene Park would give the group an uncensored report about the park redesign, which is “a blueprint for environmental mayhem,” Gruen contended in a brief.
-- Anna Quinn
The group fighting a plan to cut down trees in Ft Greene Park have sued the city again, this time to demand an environmental review.
-- Amanda Ottaway
At Fort Greene, just over a mile from the Brooklyn Waterfront, the project calls for removing several dozen mature trees and a stone wall, flattening beveled mounds added by renowned landscape architect AE Bye in the 1970s, and building a wide, flat promenade in the northwest corner to allow for an unobstructed view of the 149-foot-high Prison Ship Martyrs’ Monument.
The Sierra Club, Friends of Fort Greene Park and several individuals brought one such challenge on Feb. 15 in Manhattan Supreme Court, accusing the Parks Department of failing to publicly consider how its planned renovations will affect the environment.
“They’ve totally ignored SEQRA,” attorney Richard Lippes said in a phone interview, using an abbreviation for New York’s Environmental Quality Review Act. “They haven’t indicated that it doesn’t apply. They’ve just ignored it completely.”
Though the petitioners do agree the park needs some maintenance work, north-side residents say they weren’t consulted in the design process.
“I’m speaking from a person who was born and raised in these projects,” one woman said, explaining that she lived in the Walt Whitman Houses, almost directly in front of the park’s disputed northwest corner. “I see men and women of powerful positions coming into a community and not talking. Half of us black folks didn’t even know that you had a meeting in November. I certainly didn’t.”
-- Anna Quinn
A FOIL request for the forestry report granted in 2017 revealed that 58 trees, not 40 as they had been told, would be removed in the northwest corner renovation. Only nine of the trees were slated for removal based on poor health, despite earlier comments by parks officials that many of the trees were at "the end of their life," the group said.
The other 49 were to be removed for design reasons.
"Besides the love so many people have for the park and the kind of real specialness of this section of the park, there's this kind of horror that government can be this opaque," she said. "In fact, opposition is growing because the more people find out about this the more dislike it and are speaking out."
Parks officials expect to secure a contractor for the $10.5 million project — which will include building a promenade in the northwest corner — by this spring, a representative said, meaning construction will begin shortly thereafter.