Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Parks low on money for sidewalk repair

From Gotham Gazette:

Fiona Watt, assistant commissioner for forestry and horticulture at the parks department, said it would cost $34 million to fix all of the sidewalks currently reported as damaged by street trees in today’s dollar. To date, she said, the Department of Parks and Recreation has received $14.9 million for program, targeted at one, two and three family homes, and repaired 4,491 sites since 2005.

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

Money can be raised by having developers on new construction which remove trees in front of the property pay in excess of 20k per tree removed including removal feees to the city upon being This moent should be earmarked for sidewalk repair fo Parks Dept sidewalks (only). Additionally, new development must plant trees in front of the property - regardless as part of the greening of NYC.

Anonymous said...

That picture is a part of hollowed out Queens where city services are in a state of decline in preperation of converting a stable middle class/blue collar community into immigrant barracks.

Trees are beutifully maintained in landmarked communities.

Trees are planted to entice people to move into new buildings (nice use of public money dont you think - instead of wasting them on hospitals were the locals are clueless anyway)

Anonymous said...

This will be a GREEN city - millions planted.

In Manhattan and in front of new developments, thank you!

Anonymous said...

We have millions for bike lanes!

faster340 said...

Are you kidding me?!?! I tried to get the city to fix my sidewalk and I got squat. I even offered to have the tree removed and put in a new tree at my expense and even an additional tree in front of my neighbors house where there is none. So I offered the city 2 trees for the price of one at no expense to them and they turned me down and told me to do nothing to the current tree because it's still alive... Here are some pictures of the damage...

http://www.faster340.com/tree1.JPG
http://www.faster340.com/tree2.JPG
http://www.faster340.com/tree3.JPG

So now I replaced the sidewalk myself. It was actually cheaper and faster than waiting for the city!!!

Ant said...

don't mistaken this small city handout as a bailout for what's your responsibility in the first place. if you own a home the sidewalk is your responsibility, period. that's why you shovel it, that's why you repair it.
As for replacing one, 60 year old tree with two saplings, that is in no way a two-for-one deal. It would take several new trees to come close to the environmental benefit of one mature, healthy tree.

Queens Crapper said...

The City of New York repairs sidewalks in front of 1-2-3 family homes damaged by tree roots. Call 311 and if you get no satisfaction, call 311 again and ask for the number for Forestry. Send a copy of the problem to your councilperson, community board, civic groups and local papers with photos. I believe once you call 311 and report it, you are protected from lawsuits.

Anonymous said...

no $$$ for side walks but let do willets point please stop with the over development

Anonymous said...

The City of New York repairs sidewalks in front of 1-2-3 family homes damaged by tree roots.

---------

I heard that community board one used to encourage people to complain about trees and not want them.

They used to say 'you dont want that - it will damage the sidewalk.'

In reality, their concern was 'it would stand in the way of a paved over front yard' or 'a developer removing that old 150 year old house.'

Anonymous said...

This is what happens when you are at the mercy of your community board and local office holder and no public education programs from the preservation community.

Anonymous said...

CB1 the community board from hell!

Anonymous said...

astorians.com the 'community website' from hell.

Anonymous said...

astorians.com the 'communtiy website' with all the news okayed by the party bosses

Anonymous said...

Are you kidding me. With another 220,000 new City street trees under the DPR Forestry Fiona Watt 1-million trees planting scheme installed willy-nilly across the City without concern about spacing and optimum locations for longevity (certainly not atop of my sewer and water services) these sidewalk problems will remain as another financial burden to homeowners in addition to surge of expected tax increases.

Anonymous said...

Street trees and developers. How is it that DPR Forestry will hammer a homeowner and his/her developer with tree damage summonses (and for possible charges for tree removal if the damage is serious enough) yet on DPR parkland inhabited by trees Capital projects repeatedly allow DPR contractors under DPR permits to egregiously damage trees and get off unscathed even when the DPR engineer is there allowing it happen. Now what would you call that?