Tree Planting Initiative: Fort Greene, Clinton Hill & Wallabout

A couple months ago, the Fort Greene Association began planning to make Fort Greene, Clinon Hill, and Wallabout exemplary "Green" neighborhoods by planting more trees, getting residents and businesses to subscribe to environmentally benign electricity suppliers (i.e. windpower), to replace incandescent bulbs for compact fluorescent lights (CFLs), to increase recycling and reduce waste, and to map these efforts. The ultimate goal is to make our neighborhoods more environmentally sustainable and to be a leading example for other NYC neighborhoods.

MARP is leading the greening effort by acting as the coordinator for the tree survey. To implement the survey, eleven volunteers signed on to inspect every block in Fort Greene, Clinton Hill, and Wallabout, bounded roughly by Atlantic, Flatbush, Flushing, and Classon. Tree surveyors are using detailed Parks Department guidelines to mark possible sites for additional street trees (like the treeless sidewalk in this photo). These requests will then be forwarded to the Parks Department. When complete, I think we can expect to submit over 1000 tree requests.

This is an opportune time for the greening initiative because NYC will be increasing the number of trees planted per year as part of PLANYC 2030, which calls for planting an additional 12,500 trees per year. To read more about the plan, click here.