Parks to switch from 311 requests to neighborhood-focused tree-planting cycle

The Parks Department told the Brooklyn Borough Board on Jan. 7, 2024, that it plans to replace its current reactive, 311-driven tree-planting model with a neighborhood-based planting program that targets entire blocks on a predictable multi-year cycle.

“This new approach ... we have decided that in order to do this, we have to discontinue the service the intake of service requests from the public,” said Nieves Strauss, director of tree planting for the Parks Department. Strauss said the department will instead focus on discrete zones worked on in phases and visit every community board on a three‑year cycle as part of a nine‑year full rollout.

Parks delivered the plan as part of a public presentation to the borough board, citing the department’s inventory and backlog as the rationale for the change. Strauss said New York City Parks manages millions of trees, that roughly 86% of canopy is in forests and that the city has more than 666,000 street trees and about 156,000 trees in landscape parks. She told the…