Tokyo governor asked to stop $2.45 billion plan to remake park and famous baseball stadium

TOKYO (AP) — Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike was asked Tuesday to stop a disputed $2.45 billion project to convert a city park district, renowned for its rows of 100-year-old ginkgo trees, into a largely commercial area anchored around three skyscrapers.

The plan for the Jingu Gaien area calls for razing a famous baseball stadium where Babe Ruth played and rebuilding it, part of a vast construction project that threatens thousands of trees in a city with limited green space.

A group of 420 outside experts including architects, urban planners, environmentalists and economists demanded in an open letter and news conference that the project be suspended and suggested Koike was ignoring public discontent and bowing to the powerful construction industry.

Officials in charge of environmental issues for the city were asked for comment but did not immediately respond.

The letter said Koike and her government did not “provide official answers to dozens of public questions.” It also asked for an independent environmental assessment and said some of the ginkgo trees “are in a state of obvious decline” that could be exacerbated by construction.

“What she (Koike) is doing with this case is the simple destruction of nature when we need more trees,” Kohei Saito, a political economist at Tokyo University, told The Associated Press. “We should have an open public discussion. This is not something that only politicians and private companies should decide.”

This is the latest in mounting opposition to a plan led by real estate giant Mitsui Fudosan, the city and the Shinto religious body to demolish the baseball stadium and an adjoining rugby venue, and rebuild them in the same area to accommodate a pair of 200-meter (650-feet) towers and an