Start somewhere: Universal Access to Kami-sugetacho Citizen Forest II 上菅田町市民の森

 

Kamisusgetacho Citizen Forest is one of two Citizen Forests located in urban housing area of Hodogaya Ward. It has about 22000m2. As a Citizen Forest, it is in the smaller group. It has no public car-parking. The forest does not have toilet. No convenience store, or the like, nearby. Before visiting the place, please get done the necessary things when you need such facilities. No mini stores near tells this is the area where old families remain holding the land tenure.

The neighbor of the forest

Sure enough, after you get off the nearest commuter bus stop, along the way you can find ancient local religious facilities, like temples, shrine, and monuments for pagan religions. The most convenient bus stop to the forest is Terashitabashi Stop 寺下橋 for

Service 129 (between Sotetsu Tsurgamine Station and Shin-Yokohama Station)

Service 248 (between Sasayama Housing Complex and Senmarudai Housing Complex via Sotetsu Nishiya Station)

Service 256 (between JR Kamoi Station and Kamoi 6-chome)

Service 92 (between Yokohama Station and Sasayama Housing Complex)

Near the stop, there are these statues of Hayagriva.
 It means this road was once a busy utility road
where lots of packhorse drivers
came and went with their cargo.

You get off at Terashitabashi Stop and look to the East. You’ll find a small ridge covered by greenery. That’s the direction we aim for. Enter a small commuter road nearest to the bus stop in the direction of green ridge. Soon we cross a bridge over a small stream, then there is a Y crossing. Just before the bridge there is a small monument for ancient local religion in now a busy rental parking space. Choose the left road at the Y crossing. It is now a steep Yokohama slope. Keep on going and turn left at the second corner from the Y crossing. The road is sandwiched by farmland on our right and a hill of forest on our left. Shortly, Kami-Sugeta Special Support School is over there in front of us, and we’ll find entrances to Kami-Sugetacho Citizen Forest.

Terashitabashi Stop from Route 16 …

or Terashitabashi Stop from Shin-Yokohama Station.
Could you find a small road
turning to the left in this photo?
That’s the entrance to the route.

The scenery from the corner of
the above photo looks like this.

The ancient pagan statues, some 200-300 years old.
Now a car completely blocks the monument.

Cross the pequeño bridge …

Then take the left of the Y crossing.
Our destination is the forest over there.

The second road to the left.
Could you see a signpost?
It says “Kami-Sugeta Special Support School, this way.”
 Bingo.

The road is like this.

On our right is a farm field.

Actually, the forest that went along with us from the corner with the signpost is Kami-Sugetacho Citizen Forest. i.e. It’s on the hill. So, to enter the forest, we have to go up. The first two entrances we find to the forest are in steps, as many other Yokohama Citizen Forests. The uniqueness of Kami-sugetacho Forest is about 30m ahead. There is another entrance that is a paved slope wide enough for wheelchairs and stretchers to go in. Yeah, the route has a so-so slope-angle, but it is not as steep as the entrance slope for Koishikawa Botanical Garden or Wild Bird Park. If a wheelchairer uses a powerful motor, s/he could visit here alone, I guess.

And the left is Kami-Sugetacho Citizen Forest.

A standard entrance to Yokohama’s Citizen Forest.

And this is THE universal access entrance.

Inside the forest, strolling paths go around a peak of the hill (; the map is here). The route has 3 points with steps, but at least one of them has a sloped detour. All the roads are wide enough for wheelchairs. A fly in the ointment could be the paved area is limited in the forest. Still, the roads are well-built hard cray without bumps. I’m not sure if the maintenance of the environment is easy after a torrential rain, but the design of the road sets strategic inclinations here and there for drainages. As this is a very new citizen forest, we have to wait if the intention of landscape architect works well. But at least there is a will, which is a HUGE improvement, I think.

The road is wide.

The route is encircling the hilltop in the middle.

The space is ample for wheelchair maneuvering.

Non-paved but well-built road surface

This is one of the steps inside the route.
It is steep.
Probably,
we have to accept this typical slope of Yokohama.

Still the rest of the route is easy to walk.

The forest itself is a familiar Satoyama forest in Yokohama. It has many coppiced tall trees. It tells the place is remnants of charcoal-baking village life. As these trees are very large, the place must have been neglected for some time after petrol came into our daily life (= no demand for charcoal as fuel). A part of the slope facing the bus stop direction is covered by bamboos that also is evidence for a typical utility forest of yesteryears in Yokohama. As the design of the strolling paths is for universal access, the road is very easy to walk for everybody. There are several benches for visitors to sit and have a cup of tea from their thermos. One of the picnic points has a wide view for Mt. Fuji if the weather is right. I really hope the forest can offer an increased opportunity for people with disability to enjoy backyard nature in our own neighborhood. Kami-Sugetacho Forest is another start for Yokohama’s Citizen Forest.

Very large coppiced tree

Bamboos

Mt. Fuji is here!

Oh, I have to add this. FYI, next to Kami-sugetacho Citizen Forest, there is Kami-Sugeta East Park. The place is not for strolling in greenery, but for a baseball field, a lawned space, and toilets. The entrance to the Park is in the opposite side of the Forest. To borrow toilet there it could take at least 5-10 minutes’ walk from the exit of the Citizen Forest. Good luck.

Kami-Sugeta East Park

If you have any questions about Yokohama’s Green Tax and Green Up Plan, please make a contact with

Strategic Planning Division, Green Environment Bureau, City of Yokohama
横浜市みどり環境局戦略企画課

Phone: 045-671-2712
FAX: 045-550-4093 

Email: mk-kikaku@city.yokohama.lg.jp

Ask, and it will be given to you: Universal Access to Yokohama Citizen Forests, Kami-Sugetacho Citizen Forest I 上菅田町市民の森 I

 

The number of forests where wheelchair people can visit is limited around here. So far in this series, such forests I told you are Koishikawa Botanical Garden (; my post on February 25, 2024) and Wild Bird Park (; my post on last month, April 12, 19, 26). Both are in Tokyo and heavily landscaped places. When we talked about Yokohama’s Citizen Forest, there were none with such facilities. For the sake of argument, Yokohama Nature Sanctuary may have some degree of universal access, to the admin office perhaps. But the large part of its courses are steep slopes and steps. It will not be feasible in the end for people with wheelchairs to have a relaxing experience in forest. Yokohama is a port city. Our city is inevitably very hilly. Flat walking road in nature becomes difficult to find. That’s pity. We people of Yokohama know the issue. People in this case include planners for the Town Hall of Yokohama, who oversee establishing new citizen forests.

A road in Wild Bird Park.
Well, this place is in the end completely man-made.

Steps in Yokohama Nature Sanctuary.
This is a well-managed trekking road,
but for wheelchairs …

Yokohama’s system for Citizen Forests is a unique arrangement nationwide. Landlords with forests are offered options. They can continue having their forest with a reduced tax rate AS LONG AS it is a part of productive farmland. Familiar story in this case is “Who’s continuing the ag business in this society of rapid aging and shrinking population.?” Or they can sell the property to developers for housing, shopping centres, etc. if they want. Unlike ordinary rural areas of Japan, such opportunity is abundant here since Yokohama is a VERY large city with lots of business, and we’re a neighbor to the capital city Tokyo. When the landlord chooses this selling option,

1. They lose their title of landlords often inherited for centuries from the ancestors. Normally they also abandon family business of agriculture which too is hereditary for generations. This is a serious issue for the psyche of landlord’s entire family.

2. Sure, they receive a nice sum of money from their ancestral land which happens to be in rich Yokohama. But, they have to pay rather hefty taxes of many kinds, for land transaction, new usage of land for commercial and/or residential purposes, inheritance, etc. 

3. There is a reputational issue. Their neighbors who can be their neighbors for centuries would say anything they want, if they want, you know?

 A few days ago,
in a farmland adjacent to Niiharu Forest.
The landlord of this place is Non-profit Org
serving for people with disabilities.
They often lend their property NHK
to program production for allotment how-to.
Could you find people in the left of this photo?
They are now filming the spring farm work.

So, the Citizen Forest System offers another option to landlords. They can choose to keep their ancestral forest including farmland with impressively reduced tax rates. When an inheritance incident occurs, the City provides very preferential treatment too. The condition of this favored handling is, the landlord has to allow public to stroll in their land. When they choose this option, development of trekking roads and, when the forest is large enough, providing resting facilities for visitors such as toilets are built by the City. The private property is now Yokohama’s Citizen Forest. After the forest becomes Citizen Forest, the maintenance of landlord’s property is in the hands of Lovers Association. Often the association is formulated by family members and close friends of landlords. But if the area is very wide with many landlords who made a consortium to make the area Citizen Forest, such as Niiharu Citizen Forest 新治市民の森 with more than 90 landlords, the Lovers Association could welcome complete strangers as volunteer members who love and maintain landlords’ property. The Lovers Association contracted with the landlords via the City and receive municipal grants to run forest management activities. All these processes are funded by municipal Green Tax. A landlord may lose exclusive right for his/her ancestral land, but the ownership remains in the hands of his/her family. This could be a not-so-bad deal. Have you noticed something here? In the entire process, the idea for universal access did not enter unless somebody during the negotiation, like city officers, landlords, or neighbors of the forest, requested the needs for possible wheelchair strollers in the forest.

Spring in Niiharu Citizen Forest.
Basically Niiharu’s trekking roads were once
commuter roads for locals before gasoline cars came.
They are narrow, hilly, and of course not paved.
i.e. Difficult for wheelchair users to come in.

Well, to be fair for the people of mountainous Yokohama creating Citizen Forest, I must say it WAS so. I mean, a “past tense.” Last February, it was opened the very first Yokohama’s Citizen Forest where the development of the Citizen Forest was intentionally designed for the Universal Access. It is Kami-Sugetacho Citizen Forest上菅田町市民の森 , opened on February 27, 2026. The forest is located right next to the Kami-Sugeta Special Support School. Special support school system of Japan is educational arrangement for kids who need particular procedure, such as continuous medical care, to attend for school diplomas starting from kindergarten to high school. Yokohama has 13 such municipal schools, among which 6 schools are for kids requiring wheelchairs or stretchers. Kami-Sugeta School is one of them. For the development of a Citizen Forest right next to their campus, the school advised the landlord and the people from the City Hall. The product is this newly opened Citizen Forest. Next week, let’s visit the place with wheelchair access in bumpy Yokohama. The forest has a viewpoint for Mt. Fuji. 😊

Kami-Sugeta Special Support School

If you have any questions about Yokohama’s Green Tax and Green Up Plan, please make a contact with

Strategic Planning Division, Green Environment Bureau, City of Yokohama
横浜市みどり環境局戦略企画課

Phone: 045-671-2712
FAX: 045-550-4093

Email: mk-kikaku@city.yokohama.lg.jp