Can a Co-op in Brooklyn Save Their Weeping Cherry Tree?
April 21, 2015 — Sometimes living in a small building can be both blessing and curse. It certainly seems to be the case for a group of shareholders in a six-unit brownstone co-op in Park Slope, Brooklyn. The blessing is that they have a rear garden and in that rear garden is a weeping cherry tree. And most of the shareholders absolutely love the tree. Most of them. The shareholders who live in the garden apartment? Not so much. The tree's large roots make the backyard uneven, you see, and that makes for wibbly wobbly chairs and tables. "They recently told the board that they plan to shave a 12-foot-long root to level the area and then cover the ground in flagstone," a concerned shareholder tells Ronda Kaysen in this week's "Ask Real Estate" column in The New York Times. "An arborist told them that doing this could kill the tree. Removing the dead tree would cost around $8,000," the shareholder adds.
Can the shareholders in the garden apartment really do what they want with the tree without a co-op vote? Isn’t the tree the property of the co-op? Well, turns out it is. "Ultimately the tree belongs to the co-op, not the shareholder. So the co-op gets to decide its fate," says Kaysen. That means the shareholders in the garden apartment cannot mess with the roots of the beloved cherry tree. Advantage: cherry tree.
But… "if the backyard is included in the shareholder’s proprietary lease — and it probably is — then the co-op must make that yard usable," adds Kaysen. "The co-op, not the shareholder, is responsible for the costs [of leveling the topography of the backyard so to prevent wobblage]. If the backyard is not included in the proprietary lease, then the co-op can do what it pleases with the tree."
Bob Redman, a Manhattan arborist, makes a suggestion that can appease everyone and save the tree: "The co-op could level out the ground by adding a two- to four-inch layer of shredded cedar bark mulch around the tree, which would also protect it. If that does not solve the problem, the co-op could build a deck suspended above the ground and over the tree roots. An arborist should advise on the process and oversee construction."
Sounds like a doable compromise to us. And although it means the board may need to make an investment so that everyone is happy — and the tree lives — it seems to outweigh the alternative of not only losing the tree, but having to shell out eight grand to remove it.
Photo by Jorge Moro for Shutterstock
Read more about the benefits of planing a tree on your property here and how one co-op went about safely removing a large tree that had become a safety hazard without causing damage to the surrounding buildings here.