Residents in Brooklyn's Fort Greene are suing the city over plans to remove 78 trees for a pedestrian plaza, arguing this will harm park ecosystems. Activists claim the city's promise to replace these trees with 300 saplings is inadequate and does not account for the ecological benefits the mature trees provide. Despite the Parks department's assertion that their project mainly involves reconstruction, opponents argue it should trigger an environmental review due to its significant changes to the park's layout and resources.
The environmental concerns are important to all of us involved and for the people who live on this side of the park, it's their backyard, said Enid Braun, a founding member of Friends of Fort Greene Park.
When you're creating new entrances and taking down [dozens of] trees and putting in a plaza, that's a redesign, Braun said.
The ambitious project is ultimately trying to make the park more accessible for all residents - but the civic group has fought change at every turn, remarked Rosamond Fletcher.
The Parks department maintained that the plan is mostly a reconstruction project, claiming they exhaustively analyzed potential impacts.
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