Residents on Manhattan’s wealthy Upper East Side are complaining about city plans to build a wheelchair-accessible pedestrian bridge this spring at East 81^st Street along the East River. They say it will ruin their expensive river views. In December, Manhattan’s community board approved a nonbinding resolution to move the pedestrian bridge a block away where the view wouldn’t be obstructed but wheelchair users would have to cross in front of a busy parking garage. This resolution is not likely to cause the bridge’s location to be moved.

“The view of the river, which I’m paying a lot for, would literally become just a fence and the bridge,” said a man who would only give his first name, Paul, to the New York Post. “It’s not fair for the people who made a large investment to live where we do.”

But the bridge won’t have the negative impact the community board fears. “The views we are talking about are from a couple of lower floors, not the entire building, and the impact on most tenants is negligible,” says James Weisman, general counsel for the United Spinal Association.

“I think that the City of New York and the Community Board should be promoting Mayor Bill de Blasio’s “Vision Zero” plan with safe ways to get around for everyone, rather than bowing to the whims of a few wealthy property owners,” says Susan Dooha, executive director of the Center for Independence of the Disabled, N.Y. “A decision to move the bridge wouldn’t make sense in light of that vision.”

The city’s Department of Design and Construction will break ground this spring on the bridge project at a cost of $12 million. The project replaces a staircase at 81^st Street that leads from a walkway above FDR Drive to the East River.