Who is misleading whom?

Who is misleading whom? Reply to NOVA Parks mid-July letter to NextDoor.Com about Upton Hill Park Tree Cutting Plans. August 3, 2018

Ignoring and failing to protect the Parks’ natural resources: Arlington County staff conducted a natural resource inventory in 2007 and gave the report to NOVA Parks (and maps). The Park’s most ecologically sensitive portion is the NE corner, where there is a Chesapeake Bay Resource Protection Area (RPA) and where NOVA plans to build a roadway and parking lot for the playground! Its storm-water runoff will drain into the RPA that contains the beginning of Reeves Run. Overall NOVA Parks will chop down 115 trees, over half in this area, including some very large and old trees.

Killing a forest to save it: Does it make sense to destroy a forest in order to replant it? Even dead and nonnative trees can be useful to the environment and forest ecology. Removing 115 trees, including any number of very mature ones, from a small park in a highly urbanized area will result in lasting damage to the park and to Reeves Run (a tributary of Four Mile Run). According to Arbor Care Resources, “A mature tree is not replaceable within our children’s lifetime.” Except for children, those of us reading this text will all be dead by the time the new forest reaches maturity. Saplings, even if they survive Arlington’s frequent heat and drought, are not equivalent replacements for the many mature trees NOVA Parks will cut down. NOVA Parks could easily save more trees by foregoing the lower parking lot and new roadway connection to Wilson Blvd. And the children could enjoy the trees now rather than wait until they turned forty or fifty years old.

Pervious surfaces, not really: NOVA Parks’ permit filings indicate the use of so-called pervious pavement in new lower parking lot only -- not for the new roadway or upper parking lot expansion. According NOVA Parks, impervious surface in the upper park area will increase by 36% beyond the existing 72,718 sq ft by adding 26,533 sq ft of new pavement for a total of 99,251 sq ft. More pavement increases runoff volume and speed. In the lower playground area, almost 2.4 times more impervious pavement will be added than the “pervious” pavement for the lower parking lot spaces. Note that pervious pavement use is infeasible where the water table is high (County staff has asked for more information on this point). And even pervious pavement can exacerbate runoff volume and speed when not properly maintained.

Ignoring community input: Mr. Gilbert references community input. Having attended some of those community meetings, residents’ input was to save trees, avoid more paving for parking, and improve the upkeep of the existing forest. While some supported the project as is, just as many other community members preferred more positive park changes: invasives and trash removal, both of which plague the park; improving the playground within its existing footprint; and better maintaining the Park’s existing facilities. Apparently, NOVA Parks prefers to ignore or disparage any community input it finds inconvenient.

A majority chooses greenspace over parking lots: Only three individuals? Certainly, there were more than three speakers at the Arlington County Board’s July 14 meeting who criticized various plans to cut down trees in Arlington by NOVA Parks and private developers. Regardless of the numbers, these citizens are in sync with the vast majority of Arlingtonians who responded to a 2016 Arlington County “statistically valid” survey asking resident to name their park-related priorities: “Hiking trails, natural areas and wildlife habitats, and paved multi-use trails are the top outdoor community recreation priorities.” More parking didn’t make the cut.

Neighboring community support is a myth: A recent Sun Gazette article erroneously reported that, “The Upton Hill plan has support of the neighboring civic association….” Neither the Dominion Hills Civic Association nor the Boulevard Manor Civic Association (BMCA) has voted in support of NOVA Parks’ plan. BMCA’s board sent a positively sounding letter of qualified support to NOVA Parks without the consent or knowledge of the general membership on July 9, 2017 (which seemingly contradicts the BMCA’s by-laws: “Between assembled meetings, the Board shall carry out the wishes expressed by the Association with full power and authority for conclusive action.” Yet in this case, the Association had expressed no such wish. BMCA members are divided in their support of the project.) The BMCA Board letter noted, the board had "some concerns about expanded parking," and wanted to make the impact minimal. And, that a road exit onto Wilson may create dangers for pedestrians and traffic. This is hardly the support of a neighboring civic association. As for other communities adjacent to the park, NOVA Parks when pressed will admit they did not survey or do out reach to Spanish-speaking residents of the area.

NOVA Parks’ website is repetitive, not informative: NOVA Parks has calculatingly limited the public’s access to information related to this project, including detailed project costs and funding sources, the square footage of additional impervious/hardscape surfaces, and even its “exciting” reforestation/tree removal plans. NOVA Parks has neglected to upload complete plan details and documents to its own website even though it is a public agency receiving public dollars.

NOVA Parks’ 1950s park development strategy: Rather than its advertised “progressive approach” to park development, NOVA Parks’ plans harken back to the 1950s: more pavement, more parking lots, more driving, more tree clearing, more storm-water runoff, more pollution, and less greenspace. NOVA Parks treats public land just like any for-profit developer would.

Thanks to all the people who support saving Upton Hill Park’s beautiful trees. NOVA Parks still has time to create positive change at the park by scaling back its project and preventing even more environmental damage.