The Proposed Project
Facts and Fictions
The Project Notification Form (PNF) for “990 American Legion Highway” is filled with false and misleading information of all kinds - from the state of the land to impacts on local traffic and infrastructure. MQMF Hyde Park LLC of Lincoln Property Company - a multi-national and multi-billion-dollar corporation based out of Dallas, Texas - submitted an almost 400-page document that falsely portrays Crane Ledge Woods as a damaged and desolate site with “older trees in decline” and “no habitat”. The PNF omits or severely downplays any mention of how devastating this project would be to the forest, wildlife habitat, local Environmental Justice populations, and the entire region’s well-being and climate resilience.
The proposed project is clearly misaligned with the city’s stated Climate Ready, Environmental Justice and housing equity missions and goals. The city’s Climate Action Plan has established a target of reaching 35% tree canopy coverage in the city by 2030. Missing this opportunity to conserve Crane Ledge Woods would push us further away from that goal.
During a virtual community meeting the Coalition organized early in our conservation effort, 95 percent of over 100 local residents polled were against the construction project. Many spoke out forcefully against the proposed project as the largest environmental justice threat to our communities in living memory.
Lincoln Property Company has been doing everything they can to avoid public accountability and sidestep local and state policies created to protect our marginalized communities and diminishing green spaces from this form of reckless, short-sighted and predatory profit-seeking. For example, despite clear instructions from the city’s parks department about conducting a complete and legitimate tree survey of the land, Lincoln has not made a full report public. Instead, they submitted a table of observably inaccurate tree counts that only included trees with measurements more than twice what the parks department required.
Crane Ledge Woods is observably and objectively wildlife habitat and contains multiple biodiverse ecosystems. It is essential for the wellbeing of local residents, human and other-than-human alike, and it stands between us and suffering the same climate change impacts as other Environmental Justice populations in the city. Ultimately, there is no ‘mitigating’ the many systemic harms the proposed project would perpetuate and intensify for us. It must be stopped completely and Crane Ledge Woods must be acquired from the current property owners at fair market value to permanently conserve all 24 acres.
Facts, not Fiction.
We believe that the BPDA and our elected and appointed officials should reject this proposal completely, for legal and ethical reasons. Below are some examples of inaccurate claims by the developer versus the realities of the land.
“The Project Site’s existing tree coverage is primarily dense understory trees."
False! Crane Ledge Woods makes up 43% of the total tree canopy in Hyde Park, which is already experiencing more tree loss than any other neighborhood in Boston. The land’s tree canopy is mostly mature and native species of trees. This fact is fairly easily observable for anyone familiar with the land with basic knowledge of dendrology.
The city must require an independent arborist conduct a complete site determination including an accurate tree survey, additional flora and wildlife assessment, and wetlands/vernal pool determination.
“Due to soil conditions from the Project Site’s previous use as a quarry, the second growth tree canopy consists primarily of smaller caliper trees and invasive species in poor health."
False! Only a small portion of the site’s enclosed land was part of the historic Barry’s Quarry. This piece of the land abuts the Eversource Energy property and is at the base of the landfill. Quarry activity, which stopped approximately 80 years ago, did not impact the vast majority of the land’s soil conditions, which in most places are indicative of typical, healthy soil of a New England urban forest.
Some portions of the land suffered ecological damage from one previously initiated construction project that predictably failed on this steep, rocky terrain and was abandoned. However, a vast majority of the land proposed to be ecologically devastated by this project is currently healthy, covered in mature native trees, and supporting diverse and abundant habitat and wildlife.
Rather than a construction project inflicting further violence on the land, ecosystem and surrounding Environmental Justice populations, the only ethical course of action available is conserving Crane Ledge Woods in its current state and funding an ecological restoration initiative to increase the land’s potential benefits and overall ecological health.
“There are no large mature trees on the majority of the Project Site except for the southwest perimeter of the property, outside the proposed area of disturbance where there are better quality second growth trees."
False! There are, in fact, hundreds if not thousands of mature native trees on the proposed project site, many of which are very likely nearing a century in age or more. According to the site plans the proponent provided, the reality of the land’s terrain, and the profound ‘disturbance’ that would be required even to attempt the proposed project, the phrase ‘outside the proposed area of disturbance’ itself is egregiously misleading.
The truth is that the proposed project will not only devastate all the land within the ‘site’ boundaries, it will severely disrupt the remaining 10 acres of forest and the neighborhoods nestled directly below and above the land.