Tokyo's Chiyoda Ward will reconsider plans to cut down 37 trees lining a street ahead of the 2020 Olympics, officials said Wednesday, after local residents blasted the plan in a petition.
The policy change came after a committee of the Chiyoda Ward Assembly deliberated on the petition Monday, concluding that the ward must change its plan to remove 32 ginkgo and seven platanus trees along a 1.4-km stretch of Kanda Keisatsu Street in the Jimbocho area.
"We will consider, as soon as possible, how we can review the existing plan so we can conserve the trees," ward official Keisuke Minegishi said Wednesday.