For decades, a 24-acre forest, known locally as Crane Ledge Woods (CLW) and designated as an urban wild, has been inaccessible and mostly unknown to the surrounding neighborhoods of southwest Boston – Hyde Park, Roslindale and Mattapan. Now a multinational property company intends to construct 10 buildings containing 270 rental units, 415 parking spaces and several roads on this land. From a beautiful green space of crucial wildlife habitats – shady forest, flower-filled meadows, rocky alcoves and vernal pools – the proposed project would turn Crane Ledge Woods into an immense urban heat island of impervious asphalt and concrete. This ecological devastation would rob our local wildlife of their homes.
Crane Ledge Woods gets its name from Crane Ledge – a rock cliff offering a stunning view looking southwest across Hyde Park and the Stony Brook Valley far below. A forest of mature native trees and diverse plant life surround the towering granite cliff, preserving an inspiring sense of wilderness and keeping the area cool on hot days.
The view across the valley gives visitors a rare sense of Hyde Park as it existed more than a century ago, when Crane Ledge was a site for weekend picnics known as Pine Garden. BPDA has defined CLW as one of Boston’s “Urban Wilds & Natural Areas”. Although the property is not under the protection of Parks & Recreation Department, the city has identified this land as a key opportunity to make progress on its own climate resilience, environmental justice and open space equity goals. Crane Ledge Woods is more than half the size of Chinatown – one of Boston’s hottest neighborhoods in the summer due to tree loss and over-development. There is not enough plantable space in the entire neighborhood to replace the trees that would be lost due to the project proposed for Crane Ledge Woods, and none of those trees would reach maturity in most of our lifetimes.
For complete details of the proposed project, and information on The Crane Ledge Woods Coalition, visit https://www.savecraneledgewoods.org/
