Just like her neighbors, 74-year-old Norwood resident, Silvya Parodi relies on the leafy surroundings of Mosholu Park for her physical and mental well being. Prior to the enactment of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s statewide PAUSE order, the vast, tree-lined, green zone served as a welcome sanctuary from the City’s daily hustle and bustle.

 

When the shelter-in-place restrictions came into effect in March, that lifeline to nature became even more vital to Parodi, and a local community craving some semblance of normalcy amid the COVID-19 pandemic. “Sometimes I go sit in the park and talk to some old person that is there too,” Parodi said. “I need to go and talk to somebody sometimes.” But now, this once-lush refuge seems to be gradually disappearing.

 

Throughout March and into early April, several trees were cut down or uprooted in the enclosure beside the construction site for Mosholu golf club-house at Jerome Avenue and East 212th Street, reigniting a debate between City authorities and the local community over the site’s boundary.

 

Parodi, who survived the 1952 polio epidemic as a child growing up in Argentina, sent Norwood News photo and video evidence of the butchered landscape. She is devastated by the extent of tree removal from the park, since she believes the trees were growing on public parkland.

 

“I see the damage. I mean, it was horrible what they do to the trees,” she said. “You got to go inside the park if you want to see the enclosure and walk around.” According to Parodi, the construction team stopped work at the site on Thursday, Apr. 2. “They said they’re going to leave everything as it was before, but right now it’s no trees,” she said. “I mean, the big trees – they destroyed the trees. I don’t know.”

 

If this sounds like a familiar story, it’s because it is. Last summer Norwood News reported of dissent among other community members in relation to the same construction site. At the time, they said that in erecting a barricaded enclosure adjacent to the site, the City, which owns the land, had illegally breached the site perimeters, encroaching upon public parkland.

 

The $84-million construction project not only involves the re-building of the Mosholu golf club-house, but a new parking lot as well. According to the City’s department of design and construction (DDC), both works were foreseen in the original 2004 site plan when 43-acres of alienated lands were allocated by the State to the City for the construction of the Croton Water Filtration Plant. The underground plant was completed in 2015, under Mosholu golf course, within the site’s perimeter.

In response to concerns at that time that the project was eliminating parkland, due to the erection of the additional barricaded enclosure adjacent to the site, Ian Michaels from the DDC said, in June 2019, “The fence that went up two weeks ago is a temporary construction fence to protect the public during work, and does not represent the final boundary of the project being built behind it.”

 

He added, “No construction that is controlled by park alienation rules is taking place beyond the park alienation boundaries”. But now Parodi is questioning if the City had the authority to cut down the trees in the enclosure adjacent to the site.

 

She is also questioning if the reason the trees were cut-down in such quick succession was because the construction crew had nothing else to do, noting that they stopped their work at midday on Apr. 2, following further PAUSE orders. “It’s like death. I’m having death over there now so I’m very upset on that [sic], and we need the trees,” she said.

 

Upon receipt of the photographic and video evidence of the felled and uprooted trees, Norwood News reached out to the City’s parks’ department for an explanation. Dan Kastanis confirmed in an email dated Apr. 7 that the area in question is indeed part of the longstanding Croton Water Filtration Plant construction project, funded by the City’s department of environmental protection (DEP).

 

“A total of 85 trees will be impacted due to this project,” Kastanis said in an email reply. “As part of the replacement plan, DDC intends to plant a total of 97 one-inch trunk diameter caliper trees, and 147 three-inch trunk diameter caliper trees on-site.” Norwood News asked Parks how long it would take for such caliper trees to reach full height. Kastanis confirmed that a three-inch replacement tree is typically between 7 feet and 11 feet tall when planted, and a one-inch replacement tree is between 3 feet and 5 feet. He said both types would continue to grow and that, generally, tree growth is dependent on the species, health and site conditions. “Typically, a tree can grow up to an inch in DBH (diameter at breast height) each year,” he said.

Referring to Parks’ precise role in the tree removal process, Kastanis said, “We never approve healthy tree removals unless absolutely necessary, and our expert foresters always review each proposed removal to identify ways to preserve trees and minimize impacts”.

 

He explained that before construction projects begin, the department’s foresters conduct an initial tree inventory at the site, whereby tree conditions are evaluated pre-construction in order to note their overall health, allowing the agency to later track if any trees get damaged during the course of construction. Kastanis said this procedure applies whether there are construction-related tree removals or not, and it also applies to every project where there are existing trees within 50 feet of the site.

 

“If there is a necessary tree removal, the designers must show evidence that this tree removal presents an ‘unavoidable construction conflict’ to ongoing work,” he said. “If a removal is approved, the construction lead must submit a restitution / replacement fee.”

 

Kastanis also explained that if a tree is dead, diseased, structurally unsound, or otherwise hazardous, restitution is not required, and a new tree is not automatically planted elsewhere. Where this is not the case, the agency generally grants the removal permit as soon as a [tree removal] application is submitted.

 

As of the date of publication, Norwood News had not been able to independently verify whether the felled trees in Mosholu Park fell within or outside of the referenced barricade set up to protect the public from the construction site which, last year, the DDC said was temporary. Michaels was investigating the issue as of the date of publication.

 

Meanwhile, Bronx Community Board 7 said that following the complaints raised in June 2019, a special follow-up meeting at the Kingsbridge Library was held with various elected officials, including Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz, who had been slated to take a walk around the site with a DEP representative and examine the boundary.

 

Dinowitz’s office confirmed that the meeting did go ahead in July 2019 with DDC, DEP and various community stakeholders, and that questions relating to the site were raised with DDC for follow-up. Dinowitz’s office said that City agencies still haven’t provided answers to those questions, despite receiving a summary and reminder in a follow-up letter.

 

His office confirmed that the City did provide a response but didn’t actually answer the specific questions raised at the meeting or in the letter. His office also confirmed that several City staff said that the City’s position is that it doesn’t matter where the trees are being removed from because it’s all for park purposes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Beyond the immediate issue of losing trees in our parkland and whether that is legal for the city to do without a new alienation of parkland being made, the single most frustrating element to this entire process has been the lack of an honest and transparent dialogue between the community and our governing agencies,” Dinowitz said in a written statement to Norwood News. 

 

“The project itself is a long-delayed culmination of a horrible bureaucratic decision from nearly two decades ago to construct a water filtration plant in Van Cortlandt Park,” the statement continued. “They [City agencies] destroyed a corner of our park for a multi-billion dollar industrial facility that isn’t even good enough to do what we need it to do, and now they are poking at the wound once again by removing so many more trees just for a parking lot.”

 

Dinowitz added that while he appreciated the efforts of Commissioner Lorraine Grillo and her staff at DDC in trying to provide information to the impacted community, it was unacceptable that required answers to basic questions from the community have been tied up in various legal departments for almost a full year, and have, apparently, not been forthcoming, such as where the trees are located in relation to the alienated parkland.

 

Michaels replied to Norwood News on Apr. 20 and said, “The trees were removed [sic] were from outside of the alienation zone. The project requires the removal of approximately 85 trees in order to restore the golf course to its full length, facilitate the construction of the clubhouse and create the new 1st hole fairway”. He added, “The current work includes a new golf clubhouse facility, new parking areas and a sustainable landscape plan. During the course of the project, DDC will plant 246 new trees to compensate for the ones removed.”

 

Norwood News asked Michaels why, given that the felled and uprooted trees fell outside the alienation zone, the matter was not discussed with the public beforehand. He said, “Over the years the removal of these trees has been discussed many, many times before with the community, at Community Board meetings and task force meetings and in other forums”.

 

District Manager, Ischia Bravo confirmed that the matter is due to be discussed at Bronx Community Board 7 board meeting at the end of the month.

 

In the meantime, Parodi continues to grab some much-needed fresh air to escape the confines of her home, while still lamenting the loss of the trees. “These people, not talking to nobody in the community..,” she said. “One day we went over to the park and…… and now they’re taking our trees – no!”

 

A video of the uprooted and felled trees recorded by Silvya Parodi can be viewed by clicking on the following link:  Mosholu Felled Trees

 

*This article was updated on Apr. 21 to include additional responses from Parks and DDC.