In January 2015, the Preservancy asked the Community Board, "what is the value of a SNAD if a property can be stripped of its glorious trees...it is time to review the SNAD regulations and modify and strengthen them were appropriate. "
Over the next few years, community groups engaged with NYC to attempt to amend the our local SNAD regulations to improve efficacy, increase consistency of rules as applied, and reduce administrative burden for homeowners while retaining the oversight necessary to protect the SNAD's delicate features.
The Preservancy focus on two fronts working with the Department of City Planning:
Recommended to DCP and the NYC Department of Buildings (DOB) ways to ensure that natural features have strong protections under the new regulations and ways to improve the track record of tree removal so that healthy trees are not improperly removed and to improve the survival rate of new plantings. and,
Distributed information about the new SNAD regulations widely, to make sure that everyone who lives in and cares for natural features in the SNAD understands their obligations under what, when it was new in 1974, the community proudly called our Greenbelt law.
A copy of our comments on the SNAD text amendments in 2015 is available below.
The proposed amendment was withdrawn in October 2019 as public support for the amendment as written, was not present. Detailed information on the process is available on NYC Planning's website, as well as a copy of the most recent zoning text for the SNAD.