Letter: We Need Trees More Than We Need Attached Garages that Don’t Fit on Historic Lots

(The following letter was written by 8 year-old Angelica Kardon, a second grader at Fox Meadow School)

I’m a second grader living in Scarsdale. I go to Fox Meadow Elementary School. I have been to one Board of Architectural Review meeting at Village Hall. At that meeting, I shared my perspective, and as I heard each person speak, I became inspired to take further action and write this article.

In school, we learned about “needs” and “wants;” a “need” is something we must have to survive and a “want” is something we’d like to have.
Just because a developer “wants” to make a huge profit reselling a home and thinks he or she can make more money selling a house with an attached garage, it doesn’t mean it is what is best for the people living in the neighborhood. At a house near me, a developer wants to do this even though it will harm an important tree that has been around for 200 years that looks amazing and helps prevent our homes from flooding. Developers don’t live with us, and they don’t care if we lose all our big trees.

People do not “need” to replace unattached garages at the end of driveways with attached garages when it doesn’t make sense on a property lacking space. People do “need” trees to live. Most people in the community “want” to see beautiful trees as they walk to the train in the Village more than they “want” to see oversized homes with garages that don’t belong.

When my mom drives my brothers and me to school, I do not want to look out the window and see a garage where there should be a healthy, historic tree.

The meeting I went to inspired me to start learning all that I can about the history of Scarsdale and about its trees. I will be participating in a tree tour of our neighborhood this Saturday, April 6th at 4:15pm, leaving from 15 Autenrieth Road. Please join my neighbors and me. You do not need to pre-register.

I hope that our earth isn’t spoiled just so that we can make the developers rich. Plenty of normal people would like to buy houses with separate garages and preserve them and our trees.

Please have compassion for me and my friends in my generation. I hope you take my advice. I want our historic neighborhood to stay charming and to keep its trees. That’s what I think about what is best for Scarsdale, and for the kids.