Here is a response to Cornell’s alleged facts about its West Campus Residential Initiative Parking lot posted recently at http://ri.campuslife.cornell.edu/docs/redbud.html.

Historic Value & Warren Manning's Vision

Cornell Plantations is responsible for naming the area Redbud Woods, which is listed in Plantations’ natural areas catalog. Historically, the land belonged to Ithaca hardware magnate, Cornell alumnus and trustee, and conservationist Robert H. Treman, who saved our area’s gorges for public use and appreciation [See Historic Origins]. At the turn of the twentieth century Treman had his estate designed by American landscape architecture pioneer Warren Manning, who determined that the west lawn, which has since become Redbud Woods, should be “left to nature as the best gardener,” according to the Ithaca Daily Journal of November 2, 1901. For a few decades, the landscape remained a lawn with scattered specimen trees. Cornell has owned the property since the 1940s. Redbud Woods has grown up under the University’s stewardship. Today, the landscape retains many of Manning’s original design elements and also boasts volunteer flora that together embody a vibrant urban green space [See Sustainability Issue].

Realistic Alternatives

For so many reasons listed elsewhere, the Redbud Woods Working Group opposes the Woods’ conversion into a two-tiered, 176 space parking lot primarily for student vehicles. That said, we are not opposed to cars, parking, or even to parking on West Campus. We hope that Cornell will abandon plans to pave the Woods and instead build some parking in and among the West Campus dorms, in the space where Noyes Center will be demolished, and/or in front of the buildings at 640 and 660 Stewart Avenue [See Alternatives]. Further, at the spring’s housing lottery, students eagerly signed up to live on West Campus even after being informed that there would be no proximal parking. Therefore, we propose that, rather than pave the heart of the University Hill community, Cornell use or create more parking spaces in existing satellite lots for students who use their cars occasionally and accommodate those students with free bus passes. In the longer term, the University needs to create a transportation master plan.

Cornell's Community Relations

Cornell maintains that it was sensitive to community and student concerns throughout the planning process for this parking lot. If that is true, then why are local residents and students so angry now? [See Community Issue] In fact, Cornell administrators chose the site for the parking lot long ago and accepted no criticisms of their choice. Community members only discovered the location when one noticed it on the agenda of the Ithaca Planning and Development Board. Students made concerns known from the outset, but their opinions were never considered seriously [See Democracy Issue]. Cornell administrators have lots of practice in appearing to listen, but legitimate concerns never got a fair hearing.

So Very Accommodating

During the approval process, Cornell made very minor cosmetic changes to its original design, but the location itself was never open to question. That is why both the Planning Board and Landmarks Commission rejected a huge parking lot slated for a beautiful historic landscape. The city boards were overturned in Court on technicalities that revealed the judges lack of understanding of the issue. Cornell was not forthcoming with the facts of the design and the judges misinterpreted the purview and jurisdiction of the Landmarks Commission. That is only one of many reasons why Cornell has legal authority but no moral authority to construct the University Avenue lot.

The Cornell Plantations Website

The West Campus Residential Initiative Parking Lot FAQ omits several key facts mentioned in the Cornell Plantations entry about Redbud Woods. These include: that redbuds have naturalized; that previous lawn specimen trees remain; and that the diversity of the Woods includes abundant indigenous, scarce and locally rare species, not just "invasive" ones.

The second half of the Cornell Plantations entry reads:

"Here it has naturalized abundantly and creates a reddish-purple haze of flowers in the spring.

A few large trees originally may have been part of a former forest, then served for years as lawn specimens, and now are surrounded by the young forest. Black walnut (Juglans nigra) trees, seeded from a nearby cultivated tree, are very abundant here. Native trees species include butternut (Juglans cinerea), pignut hickory (Carya glabra), white ash (Fraxinus americana), white pine (Pinus strobus), shagbark hickory (Carya ovata), and black cherry (Prunus serotina).

This is inherently a very fertile, dry, limy site with a warm microclimate. Two species here are at the northern edge of their range: hackberry (Celtis occidentalis) is locally scarce, and yellow oak (Quercus muhlenbergii) is locally rare."

 

	We're told "this piece of land is not a historic woods, but the lawn of the historic Treman estate." So it wouldn't be okay to pave the lawn of the Treman estate, but it is okay to pave the woods? By the University's argument, we should cut down the woods and restore the lawn.
	The Parking Lot FAQs' carefully selected image captioned "Now: View from University Ave. and University Ave." showing the leafless splendor of Winter in a temperate deciduous forest. Apparently, this demonstrates the overall unattractiveness of the woods.
	And now the proposed view, infused with a touch of Photoshopping. Still winter, but the University's digital landscaping makes the whole thing very nice, right?
	Extensive landscaping will supposedly shield the parking lot from view. But would this obscured entrance from University Avenue really be safe for cars or pedestrians?