‘A real gut punch’
Debate intensifies over removing trees at Cardinal Stadium
Town Tree Warden Gregory Kramer will preside over a public hearing at 1 p.m. Wednesday on the case of 34 trees, which the Board of Education plans to remove to make way for proposed handicapped parking at the stadium at Greenwich High School.
GREENWICH — The immediate future of the Cardinal Stadium project may hinge on a single decision about the fate of a group of trees.
Town Tree Warden Gregory Kramer will preside over a public hearing at 1 p.m. Wednesday on the case of 34 trees, which the Board of Education plans to remove to make way for proposed handicapped parking at the stadium at Greenwich High School.
Some in town, including the nonprofit Greenwich Tree Conservancy, say that too many trees have already been removed from the GHS campus and that the trees provide an important buffer and are not easily replaceable. Proponents of the project say a ruling in favor of preserving the trees could mean further disruption, or possibly even a full stop, to the oft-delayed project to revamp Greenwich High’s most important playing field. At the least, it could force to school board back to the drawing board to redesign aspects of the stadium project.
“If they were to deny us the ability to create
federally mandated ADAcompliant parking, it stops us from opening the bleachers,” said Board of Education member Joe Kelly, who has a leading role in the project. “We cannot have our stadium opened unless we have our federally mandated ADA parking within proximity of the bleachers.”
He urged supporters of the Cardinal Stadium project to attend Wednesday virtual public hearing.
Without the ADA parking, which are required under federal law, the town could not issue a certificate of occupancy for the stadium, Kelly said.
The new home-side bleachers are expected to be finished by the fall. But without ADA accessibility to the stadium, those bleachers would remain empty, Kelly said. The town’s Building Inspection Department did not respond to a request for comment.
But Kramer said he did not see his impending decision on the trees as makeor-break for the project. Of the 34 trees, most are not of any significance and the roughly eight trees in the footprint of the proposed ADA parking could likely be easily replaced, allowing that part of the project to proceed, he said.
Others, which would need to be removed to allow for an access road connecting the stadium to East Putnam Avenue, have greater value, Kramer said.
“This is not holding up any ADA parking lots or any type of ADA accessibility,” he said. “It’s really trying to save trees that are in the infrastructural areas.”
It could delay the work of the Board of Education, Kramer said. But if the members are willing to work with him and rethink the design, trees could be saved and the project could move forward, he said.
“I think if the design team understands the scope of what I was looking for, in terms of retaining some of the trees, and can make those mitigations, I think it should be able to move forward as planned,” Kramer said.
Kelly said he has made it clear that the Board of Education is willing to plant an equivalent number of trees elsewhere on the property in exchange for ADA parking. That would be a start, Kramer said, but only the “bare minimum.” More new trees would be better, he said.
Peter Malkin, founder and chair of the Greenwich Tree Conservancy, went further in a letter to Kramer urging caution ahead of Wednesday’s meeting.
“The trees in question include many that are major in size and quality and irreplaceable,” Malkin wrote. “Planting of trees in the usual size will take decades to compensate and will not be located to provide the same buffer.”
According to Kelly and Stephanie Cowie, a GHS Parent Teacher Association co-president and member of the First Selectman’s Advisory Committee for People with Disabilities, there is little space on the campus to resituate ADA parking and the egress, which would allow access for emergency vehicles.
A plot behind the homeside bleachers was briefly considered for ADA parking, but town officials nixed it over concerns about safety. It would have meant parking cars close to — and without a buffer — an area where large groups of people congregate.
“There is not a lot of ability to move things and do things at the high school, to expand,” Cowie said. “There was significant discussion with the architect, engineers, wetlands (the town Inland Wetlands & Watercourses Agency), the Department of Transportation . ... There aren’t many places that parking can go.”
For Cowie, the situation at Greenwich High is frustratingly similar to another project. She cited the appeal over an oak tree on Greenwich Avenue, which is slated for removal as part of an intersection improvement project that would, in part, enhance ADA parking.
Cowie, who uses a wheelchair, acknowledged the importance of trees. But the federal ADA takes legal precedent over the charge of the tree warden, a position given authority according to Connecticut state statute, she said.
“It’s ADA that should be driving the conversation, not the trees,” Cowie said. “They are not majestic, they are not specimen trees of any kind. It is an overgrown area that has never been taken care of.”
But Kramer is not taking a binary view. The Board of Education can have its way — it’ll just have to spend more money and get creative with its design work, he said.
Kramer but lamented that he was consulted late in the process of this project.
“I’ve worked on numerous projects and engineers, they come up with a lot of ingenious solutions to a lot of different problems,” he said. “I do believe there could be some very ingenious replanning, or redesigning.”
Asked about design alternatives, Kelly said, “We went back and looked at it from engineering, architectural standpoint and some of the trees can’t be saved. Those sorts of things are what they are, we have no alternatives.”
Kramer said that he can have up to three business days after the hearing before issuing his ruling.
Should he role in favor of the preservationists, the Board of Education could file an appeal with the state Superior Court in Stamford. According to Kelly, he has been told the appeal process could take a year, during which time, the project would likely come to a halt.
Cowie also suggested that an unfavorable ruling by the tree warden could result in involvement from the federal Department of Justice, which upholds the ADA.
For Kelly, any such obstacle would be more than merely disappointing.
“It’s complicated,” Kelly said. “It’s devastating. It’s a real gut punch.”