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ONE recent morning, a 52-year-old computer technician and amateur naturalist named Rob Jett tucked a pair of binoculars and “The Sibley Field Guide to Birds of Eastern North America” into his bag and headed out of his Park Slope apartment for the F train.
His destination was the Ridgewood Reservoir, a 50-acre site on the Brooklyn-Queens border that once supplied Brooklyn with water. Two of its three water basins were drained in 1989, however, and now a dense forest has taken root there, providing a sanctuary for birds and a treat for bird-watchers.
“Look! It’s a red-tailed hawk,” Mr. Jett exclaimed upon arrival, pointing to a bird that hovered like a kite in the sky.
But the reservoir, which is nestled within Highland Park, is also one of eight areas designated for conversion to parkland under Mayor Bloomberg’s plan to have a park within 10 minutes of every New York residence by 2030.
Mr. Jett does not approve. He is part of a group of more than 50 birders and others who object to the parts of the city plan under which two of the water basins will be preserved but the third, and largest, will be transformed into an “active recreation center,” as the plan puts it. Instead, they want to preserve all the reservoir’s natural habitats and to develop a nature educational facility.
In the opinion of Mr. Jett, the plan seems “counterintuitive” for a city that also intends to plant a million trees over the next decade.
“It’s like this parcel is sitting here pleading, ‘Do something with me,’ and I don’t think that means ball fields,” he said before being distracted by a black-capped chickadee.
For his part, the parks commissioner, Adrian Benepe, said that although the city has allocated $50 million to improve Highland Park and incorporate the Ridgewood Reservoir into it, construction and design plans are not final. “The bulldozers aren’t warming up,” he said.
But Mr. Benepe did say that “some small portion” of the Ridgewood Reservoir area, probably about 30 percent, will be used for recreation. “Any time you build a park, especially in an area that is overgrown, you have to remove some trees,” he said.
Mr. Benepe also emphasized what he described as his “moral obligation” to provide New Yorkers with space for recreation, especially children who suffer from a lack of exercise, and the need to balance the needs of a community.
“People care very deeply about parks,” Mr. Benepe said. “And there are many opinions about what they should look like.”
