We’re generally impressed with the efforts and plans by the alphabet soup of agencies and groups responsible for the greater Downtown Brooklyn area. This latest development strikes us as particularly welcome, though. We’re focused mainly on the trees in the above rendering–this shows plans by the newly-minted Court-Livingston-Schermerhorn Business Improvement District (BID) to plant trees along the Livingston corridor, an area sorely in need of some sprucing up. The Downtown Brooklyn special zoning district also requires street trees to be planted along this stretch.
A recent study finds that “remaking the look” of a neighborhood is one of the most valuable things a BID can do–including a streetscape plan with trees like the one shown above. The study found that larger BIDs are actually really good at improving an area–while small BIDs (with a budget of less than $250k or so) are not effective. We’re happy to report that the new Court-Livingston BIDis putting up a very respectable budget of $700k in its first year, which begins October 1, 2007. Roughly $60k of that is slated for “Landscaping & maintenance.” Let’s see that double or more in the near future. Bring on the street trees!
UPDATE: the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership helpfully contacted us to point out that Marty allocated a cool $200,000 for street trees downtown last year, and that “the Downtown Brooklyn Council (our predecessor organization) used these funds to plant new trees on Livingston and Court Streets. Since they’re young, they’re all relatively small trees – within 3 years they’ll be much more noticeable.” Keep it coming!
While we’re on the topic, check out the DBP’s slick new website.
