Trees > people: Construction of a new backyard townhouse on my street has been stopped because the third floor conflicts with a private tree
@bikepedantic tell them the tree needs to come out to provide more parking?
@bikepedantic Easy to miss that tree since it's not wearing hi-vis apparel.
@getalifemike @bikepedantic and nobody noticed it during their first two stoppages, what?
@bikepedantic I like trees just fine, but I’m always surprised at how much less trees/brush there is in industrial era photographs of my town.
Idk if it was goats, arsenic in the soil or just manpower, but it does look quite nice.
@bikepedantic I firmly believe the Cambridge Tree Protection ordinance was written to be a NIMBY green-washing measure. From what I can tell, it doesn't apply to street trees. For all the grief Cambridge will give Eversource about substations, they give them carte blanche to cut down street trees. I'd love to see more undergrounding of utilities -- it's not cheap, but it is both more resilient and allows for real street trees, not just the dinky Serviceberries.
@TiconderogaNo1 lol ‘serviceberries’. It’s a mystery to me why a place as wealthy and obsessed with aesthetics hasn’t pursued an undergrounding program. Everyone wins (afaik)
@bikepedantic @TiconderogaNo1 I’m sure there are others, but the only place I know that put all their wires underground is Woodstock VT, which I think only did it bc the local Rockefeller paid for it all.
This is the third major work stoppage in this project, which I’m told took several years of design and permitting.
It’s almost like people and policymakers don’t actually want to provide people with affordable places to live near them in a city.