Residents Sue City In Fight Against Fort Greene Park Renovation

FORT GREENE, NY — A group of residents will take the city to court over a renovation project planned for Fort Greene Park, with the hope that they can save grassy mounds at an entrance.

The Friends of Fort Greene Park filed a lawsuit against the Parks Department asking that it release more information about trees inside after officials claimed healthy ones were near death. The group hopes they will be able to change the controversial plans to renovate the park, the Brooklyn Paper first reported.

"We have to protect the parks from the Parks Department," Sandy Reiburn, a member of the group, told Patch.

"There's been a lot of disinformation and we think that the Parks Department spending $10.5 million should be held accountable and that material should be public information."

Last year, the agency announced a project to revamp the park's Myrtle Avenue and St. Edwards Street entrance as part of the Parks Without Borders initiative. Plans call to level the grassy mounds in the northwest corner, destroy 49 trees and build a promenade to the Prison Ship Martyrs' Monument.

Residents criticized the plans saying that it takes away too much green space and called for the grassy mounds to be spared, but the city didn't budge.

The Friends of Fort Greene Park later filed a Freedom of Information Law request for the survey of the 129 trees in the park and got back a document with about 30% of the text redacted, according to Michael Gruen who filed the suit for the group.

The material they did get showed that many of the trees deemed sick or old were actually healthy and others could be easily saved without taking them down, the Brooklyn Paper reported.

Gruen filed an Article 78 on April 20 to appeal a judge to force the agency to provide the full report the group hopes will shed more light on the project.

"The ultimate goal one way or another, and we'd rather do it by talking or by suing, is to modify the plan for the rehabilitation of the park," said Gruen. "There are good things but then there’s elimination of over half of the trees that are in the project area and that doesn’t sit so well."

The city has until this week to respond to the group's suit then it will go in front of a Manhattan judge who will decide if the full documents will be released.

A spokeswoman for the Parks Department declined to comment on the case citing pending litigation.

Image: Parks Department