Tree removal angers residents
Neighbors want more input on plans for Lincoln Park
Residents and neighborhood groups are furious after a contractor cut down 20 trees in Lincoln Park last week.
The tree cutting happened at the playground at the far east end of the park along Eagle Street. It’s meant to make way for new basketball courts as part of the city’s overhaul of Lincoln Park. Confusing the issue is the fact that the city’s Water Department is also taking down trees in the west end of the park as part of the $45 million Beaver Creek project. That project, which the city is required to do under a federal consent decree, is one of the largest water and sewage projects in the department’s history.
Dannielle Hille, founder of A Block At a Time, said she learned about clear-cutting late Thursday morning.
Hille and others the Times Union spoke with said the contractor was supposed to spend Thursday and Friday setting up equipment and fencing around the site before beginning work on Monday. Instead, starting at 8 a.m. on Thursday, crews removed the trees in less than three hours, including some trees that were to be left alone along with others that were supposed to be removed and replanted, residents said.
The trees included 150-foot fir and spruce trees, as well as smaller fruit trees.
“They just literally cut everything that was standing,” Hille said. “I told them to stop; they didn’t. They still tried to cut them down.”
When she arrived around
10:45 a.m. Thursday, there were only three trees left. A woman had brought her child to the swings while a backhoe dug up the basketball court. Hille and Chris Mercogliano, a member of the Lincoln Park Alliance, were able to step in front of two trees, saving them from chain saws.
Mayor Kathy Sheehan’s spokesman David Galin said the mayor was also outraged by the way the contractor handled the work. He said the city ordered the contractor to stop the tree removal when they learned of it.
“While many of the trees were slated for removal as part of the work to construct three new basketball courts and a pavilion, work will not restart until we communicate further with local stakeholders and give the contractor the go-ahead,” he said in a statement.
Hille criticized the city for a lack of communication and the inability for residents to give their input on the proposed final design of the courts. The design for the courts was unveiled about a month ago, she said.
“We were under the impression that there’d be more community comment opportunity,” she said.
Councilman Derek Johnson, who represents that portion of the park, said that he had conversations with city officials to ensure the lack of communication wouldn’t happen again and that he saw it as a teachable moment. The renovated basketball courts are something the area badly needs, he said.
“It was just a lot at once,” he said. “This is a community that has asked for this project.”
The city is planning a walkthrough of the site with residents and the contractor on Wednesday.
Galin said the basketball courts portion of the plan was overwhelmingly voted on by residents as the first step they wanted to see. The plan calls for two more courts, along with lighting and seating, and expands the playground footprint.
The city is also planting roughly 20 trees to replace those that were taken down.
“We will continue to work with local residents and neighborhood leaders to ensure this priority project not only meets but exceeds our residents’ expectations,” he said.
Hille and Mercogliano noted that the city’s renderings show trees around the new courts, but that those trees will take years to grow large enough to replace the shade the old trees provided.
The city announced last year it was investing more than $2 million, including adding an amphitheater, as part of the master plan for the park.
Meanwhile, sugar maples and other trees at the west end of the park are being taken down as part of the Beaver Creek project. However, the contractor for that job did tag some trees that were to be left alone.
The Beaver Creek project plan calls for about 150 trees to be removed, according to a recent presentation given to the Lincoln Park Alliance.
The Beaver Creek project will reduce sewer overflows into the Hudson River. The city, along with several other local communities, is required to reduce its combined sewer overflow into the river under the 2014 consent decree. The Capital Region sends about 1.2 billion gallons of untreated sewage into the river each year, with Beaver Creek’s sewer district making up about 45 percent of that volume.
The majority of the work there will happen in and around the ravine, which is overgrown and has developed sinkholes and discharges that release the smell of sewage.
Hille said the city Water Department has been proactive and responsive to community concerns about the Beaver Creek project, including making the decision to bury the majority of the treatment facility that is being built on the site.
The underground facility will screen solid materials that enter the combined sewers during storms and send them to the county treatment plant. The remaining water will be disinfected in giant tanks with chlorine to kill bacteria and viruses, then dechlorinated before reentering the sewer system.
The bowl area of the park will be shut down starting next month for up to two years and surrounded by a contractor’s fence. As the contractors excavate the area where the underground water treatment facility will be built, the fill will be trucked over to the bowl area. That earth will be used to regrade the fields, raising it several feet and improving drainage.
The east end of the field will be reopened next June, while the west field will remain a contractor staging area. The west end will not be fully reopened until late 2022 or early 2023, according to the presentation.
The majority of the construction for the underground facility will happen in the northwest corner of the park and wrap up in December 2022.
Afterward, the city will also redesign the ravine area, including replacing a community garden and adding outdoor classroom space, walking paths and other features.