Trees in Tokyo's Meiji Jingu Gaien area have started to be cut down to make way for a redevelopment project. If all goes according to plan, 619 trees will be removed. It is hard to say that the businesses in charge of this project exhausted all efforts to examine options to win people's understanding, and it is likely to leave scars for the future.

The redevelopment plan calls for the Jingu Baseball Stadium and Prince Chichibu Memorial Rugby Stadium to be torn down and replaced, and for the construction of three new high-rise buildings. The plan has been devised by the Meiji Jingu shrine organization, Mitsui Fudosan Co. real estate company and others.

Calls for the project to be scrapped have been raised over the expected felling or transplanting of some 1,000 medium- to large-sized plants, the effects of the new stadiums on the famed gingko tree promenade and other concerns.

At the urging of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, developers submitted a revised proposal that included a tree preservation plan. Under the revised plan, taking into consideration the protection of the gingko trees' roots and other factors, the new baseball stadium will be constructed 18 meters away from the trees, not the 8 meters that had been previously planned.

That doesn't mean the trees will be fine, given their current conditions. Even in a developer survey, just 52 of the 128 trees in the four rows of trees were considered "A rank," showing a normal level of vitality.

The revision reduced the number of trees to be cut by 124. However, this number included trees that were scheduled to be cut down but were merely reclassified as dead trees, thus it cannot be called a very major overhaul.

Regardless, a metropolitan government environmental assessment committee simply decided after one meeting that no further reviews were needed, and incomprehensibly approved the revised plan. Was there no need for a more careful analysis and debate over the redevelopment's environmental impact?

The Japan branch of ICOMOS, the International Council on Monuments and Sites, has criticized the developers' plans from a scientific standpoint. However, they never provided the group an opportunity to offer their opinion. Along with the approval's hastiness, it can be seen as a conclusion that was predetermined.

The redevelopment project will continue until 2036 in the area, and the assessment council will reportedly demand reports from the developers as needed going forward. It's essential for the people to watch over the project with deep interest over the health of the gingko trees, the environmental effects and more.

This series of events has brought a profound lesson about the way that urban redevelopment projects proceed, reminding businesses of the importance of reviews that confront concerns head-on and thorough consensus-seeking with the community. The problem is not limited to Jinju Gaien alone.