we can fight city hall

“urban green spaces are fundamental components of a city’s infrastructure - green spaces enrich the lives of city dwellers in many ways, offering places to watch wildlife, to renew from the stresses of daily life, and to provide many environmental functions (i.e., minimize flooding) - evidence shows that urban green spaces reduce anxiety and stress, even help to lower crime and violence - however, many people only equate green spaces with public parks and other publicly accessible spaces - citizens forget about green spaces in their own backyards, the street right-of-ways and other public, private and semi-public places - urban green spaces are all around us and if we look hard enough we will be amazed at what they have to offer - unfortunately, many of these hidden green spaces are under threat of disappearing…….” - - the seattle audubon society

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can we fight city hall?

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the small greenbelt in question is an unimproved city right of way, that had been populated by mature trees, groundcover, understory shrubs, and natural leaf - mold mulch - it provided habitat for birds, insects, and small mammals, preventing soil erosion, absorbing rainfall and reducing storm water run-off, filtering impurities and producing oxygenin december of 2006, as owner of the property adjacent to this right-of-way, I commissioned a tree preservation and landscape enhancement plan for this property - the intent of this plan was to preserve existing trees (primarily very large big leaf maples), to remove non-native groundcovers (primarily english ivy) and to add numerous native trees, shrubs, groundcovers, and mulch to the area, and to begin regular maintenance, including pruning, weeding, watering, and organic fertilization - this plan was submitted to the city arborist and was approvedfollowing the city’s issuance of permit for this work, a neighbor to the south, mr jeff wysong, having recently completed extensive renovation of his new home on federal avenue, decided to build a sport court in his rear yard, part of his triple residential lot - rather than building the sport court prior to, or simultaneously with, the renovation of his house, which would have been logical, or bringing in equipment and materials around and over the house (via crane), which would have been feasible, mr wysong elected to cut down eight mature city of seattle trees, remove a majority of existing shrubs and groundcovers, and build a construction access road on city of seattle propertythis destruction began late May of 2007 in violation of appropriate city permit requirements and with complete disregard of the original city approved improvement plan for this greenbelt in the following post are some examples of the failure of attempted discourse and constructive resolution with the city to date

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