Not wrong re the trees, but surely they are cutting some of them back for the northern stand in the first place.That is my thinking, look at the image, that corner is very close to the treeline, I would say that trying to build any stand in the corner would cause the trees to have to either be severely cut back or removed completely, and that will never happen.
Can’t seem to load the photo of the current top view but it seems they are pretty close to the lower tier seats.