Hillside Woods Restoration Project

  

The Village of Hastings is working to restore integrity to Hillside Woods and Park. This 100-acre preserve suffers from lack of understory and plant diversity, encroaching invasive plants, soil erosion, and deteriorated trails, among other issues. Most of the problems in the woods can be attributed to the overpopulation of deer, who have chewed through many native plant species entirely, with cascading impacts. Deer overpopulation has destroyed forest ecosystems up and down the East Coast, and Southern Westchester has been especially affected.

Through an urban forestry grant from DEC, in 2017, Hastings hired a team to assess the woods and write a forest management plan. This plan called for the creation of a deer exclosure in part of the park to restore a diverse and healthy habitat, and to replant trees in other areas with canopy gaps with individual protection.

The original forest management plan recommended an exclosure of 60 acres, but because of pandemic funding freezes and subsequent supply-chain issues and inflation, as well as the impracticality for Parks & Rec to monitor such a large tract, the Village has installed a 30-acre exclosure. See fencing map below. This exclosure will be completed and should be functional in 2024.

Visit the Protect Our Woods website for photos and details on work to date, data and photos. 

• Why This Initiative? Read more about the state of the forest and its challenges.
  • Ecological Assessment of Deer Impact on Hillside Park and Forest (5-11-17): conclusions of David deCalesta, Ph.D., Certified Wildlife Biologist, following his survey of Hillside Woods in May 2017.
• Hillside Woods Restoration Project History: how this project has evolved, including a record of public presentations and a FAQ sheet
• Hillside Woods & Park Tree Inventory & Urban Forest Management Plan (1-22-19): the forest management plan directing the Hillside Woods Initiative
• Plan Appendices
• Hillside Woods General History from the Hastings Historical Society
• Volunteer Resources

• The Village, with restoration project volunteers on the Tree Preservation Board and Parks & Rec and Conservation commissions, and as instructed by the woods management plan commissioned in 2017, has erected fencing to exclose 30 acres of Hillside Woods from deer. The exclosure will be completed once the deer are driven from inside, which the Village expects to effect in early 2024. For additional info, see the Protect Our Woods website.
• Protect Our Woods (POW), with members of the HWRP and Parks staff, installed a new kiosk at the Chemka Pool parking lot trail head. See pics from our kiosk dedication ceremony, July 5, 2020. Thanks to Jim Metzger for covering the event! Thanks to Cat McGrath for her tireless work realizing the kiosk project, and to the generous Hastings resident who funded it.
• We offer student interns an opportunity to flex their journalism muscles.
  • In 2021, Hastings High School senior Róisín O'Flaherty contributed two posts. The first is on the beech trees in Hillside Woods, which are infected with beech leaf disease, nearly always fatal. Read it here. Learn more about our tree work and why we're marking Norway maples and ailanthus with this post.
  • In 2022, Hastings High School senior Benjamin Seto-Glick contributed this post on invasive worms. Invasive worms are responsible for massive soil erosion and other impacts.
• In the summer of 2020, we trained scores of volunteers – first by Zoom, and then in person – on tree and shrub I.D. Volunteers surveyed over 1600 Norway maple and ailanthus trees and over 850 Japanese barberry bushes, and input the data in a smartphone app called Epicollect5, the results of which you can view here.
• Volunteers have also ripped out hundreds of invasive shrubs, reducing project costs. Hundreds of individuals have worked in the woods, contributing thousands of hours to the HWRP. Volunteers continue to turn out to lop vines around town or remove invasive plants from Hillside Woods. Contact the Conservation Commission to volunteer for the woods or check out our volunteer page.