Sea Gate Community Streetscape Enhancements

Coney Island, Brooklyn, NY

Client: Sea Gate Association

Denisha Williams, Principal and ISA Certified Arborist,
Being Here Landscape Architecture & Environmental Design, 2017

The Sea Gate Community Streetscape Enhancements project addresses needs of the Sea Gate Community on the far western tip of Coney Island, Brooklyn, which suffered severe flooding and wind damage during Superstorm Sandy. BHLA is serving as Certified Arborists for the project, responsible for selecting appropriate locations for new street trees and specifying tree species, soils, and tree pit treatments. BHLA has also designed a new salt-tolerant entry planting at the main entrance to the community. The street tree planting project entails planting of up to 185 new sea-salt resilient street trees. The trees will be planted in new tree pits or in enlarged existing tree pits, next to the curb, generally following NYCDPR design standards and specifications for street tree pits. (Although Sea Gate, as a private community, is exempt from DPR jurisdiction, DPR specifications for street tree plantings are still being observed to the extent feasible given the narrow sidewalk widths.) To further enhance the resilient flood mitigation benefits of the street tree planting project, a portion of the tree pits will be green infrastructure enhanced tree pits, with additional drainage capacity to filter stormwater in a constructed bioswale.

The project is federally funded with U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Community Development Block Grant-Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) funding, delivered through the NY Rising Community Reconstruction Program administered by the Governor’s Office of Storm Recovery (GOSR).