🌳 NYC Parks Response to Frustration with Tree Maintenance

🌟 Author’s Note

Hello to the 1 new subscriber of the Better Block Project, bringing our total group of members to 99 individuals looking to improve their community in Brooklyn 💪 

🗺️ Mapping for Equity Event on Saturday, November 15th @ Herbert Von King Park

We’ve partnered with BetaNYC to host a Mapping for Equity event in Herbert Von King Park on Saturday morning, November 15th. The goal of the event is to map public amenities, like streetlights and benches, for their online OpenStreetMap. The data can then be used for advocacy to improve public amenities. I’ve spoken with many of you who’ve wished for more trash cans and better lighting on streets in Bed Stuy, and this is a way to map those gaps so we can advocate with elected officials to improve the status quo. Register for the event here, it will start at 10:30am. Hope to see you there!

🌳 NYC Parks Response to Frustration with Tree Maintenance

Last month, we sent NYC Parks a set of questions to more deeply understand the challenges of tree maintenance, hear their ideas on what could be done to improve the situation and get their initial feedback on our policy ideas. The full response is attached as a PDF to this email below and what we learned was compelling.

First, NYC Parks gave us more detail on the structure of the block pruning program. They are responsible for over 800,000 street and park trees and prioritize trimming those based on a tree risk management process. The pruning that our neighbors are frustrated with, such as dead branches and trees blocking street lights, are typically assigned lower risk categories, and as a result prioritized later (or never) to be trimmed. They could not provide any data on injuries caused by this lack of tree maintenance, citing that this data is maintained by the NYC Comptroller’s office.

They aim to trim trees every 7 years, though they added a caveat here that this is as funding allows. In fiscal year 2025, the block pruning program trimmed 64,673 street trees with a budget of $8.78 million dollars.

NYC Parks agrees there is a problem with tree maintenance, “We acknowledge that conditions including small dead branches, branches hitting a nearby building or electrical lines, or blocking a streetlight, require attention.” Interestingly, their main ask wasn’t actually budget. It was staffing driven. Tree maintenance requires trained Climbers and Pruners, and it’s been difficult for them to recruit and train this staff. They’ve launched a Climber & Training Program to try to combat this, and expect another graduating class to join the workforce in 2026. If you’re curious about what it takes to be a Climber and Pruner, here is a job description from the NYC Parks website.

Their response to our policy ideas was mixed. They continue to balk at the idea of allowing residents to make small tree repairs on their own, citing the dangerous conditions and potential damage to the trees. They were receptive to the idea of improving the permitting process to make getting tree permits faster, but cited resources and capacity as an issue for faster permitting.

🔭 What does this mean and where do we go from here?

The overall response from NYC Parks was unfortunately lacking a sense of urgency to solve the problem. In the note, they agree that tree maintenance is a problem, and we as residents know that from our Wasp nest experience and the many examples we’ve heard of trees not being maintained. Here are a couple of photos from residents shared with me over just the last couple of weeks:

It’s not surprising this is the case, given what we learned a couple of weeks ago about fraudulent tree maintenance contracts and the resignation of the NYC Parks Commissioner in May 2025. It’s clear from the on the ground experience as well as the change in leadership that NYC Parks is in need of an organizational reboot.

Despite this, we’re hopeful. When we get a new mayor in a month, regardless of who that will be, it’s likely we will get a new NYC Parks Commissioner and a fresh look at the organization. We believe that will be the perfect time to advocate for better maintenance of city trees, an issue that impacts every resident living on a tree lined block in Brooklyn. Our goal is to aim to bring this issue to the forefront of the agenda once this new NYC Parks leadership is in place, so we can see real change happen. In the meantime, we’re going to continue to follow up with the offices of CM Gutierrez, CM Krishnan and CM Nantasha Williams to iterate on our proposed legislation to see what we can get done this year.

⏳ Where we are on the other problems we’re working on

• 🏠️ Improving Vacant Buildings on Fulton, Jefferson and Macon: Our Vacant Building Tiger 🐯 Team, including Andrew and Jenny, met for the first time this week. We discussed how fines often go unpaid for penalties against landlords and developers, and brainstormed creative ways to increase enforcement here. We’re now pursuing conversations with CM Osse, CM Hudson and CM Rita Joseph’s office to to improve policy to hold landlords and developers more accountable for negligent behavior.

• 🚌 Cleaning up Fulton and Franklin Bus Stop: We still have not heard from the NYPD on the light installation to improve the situation on the Franklin and Fulton bus stop, we will plan to follow up next week. We met this week with a reporter from WNYC to explore writing a story on the situation to raise awareness for the city to do more

• 🧹 Cleaning up Trash on Fulton Street: Following our update last week, next week we’re going to work to start building our case of materials to improve trash on the street and developing our budget request to increase sanitation containerization and enforcement to reduce illegal dumping

• 🌳 Building a Park: Next weekend, we plan to take a walk of a few potential sites to evaluate which lots are best suited for a new park!

That’s all for this week’s update. If there are other community leaders or neighbors you know that want to get involved in solving these problems in Brooklyn, forward this email to them and encourage them to get involved.

See you next week,

David