A meeting of about 50 people in Orange this week has called on Orange City Council to reconsider putting the sports precinct in an area where it would involve the culling of 500 trees.

Futuring Orange founder Kate Hook said the site would be better used as a venue for outdoor food and wine events, an open-air cinema and parklands to attract tourists.

Ms Hook said placing the sports precinct at the originally-planned site on the Northern Distributor Road would provide two assets for Orange.

"We believe Orange deserves two areas. One need not cancel out the other," she said.

"It could become like Centennial Park in Sydney. It is the vastness of it that makes it special."

The Heritage Council of NSW last week approved the removal of trees in the immediate vicinity of the planned sporting facilities.

It will now be up to Orange City Council to decide the trees' fate.

Ms Hook said council should be seeking a second opinion, possibly from companies who specialised in sustainable building, before making its decision.

"It is a development of significance. We need a second opinion," she said.

She said she believed there were only 13 trees at risk at the Northern Distributor Road site.

Ms Hook said the Bloomfield site offered a range of future use possibilities.

"Don't under-estimate what the people of Orange can do with the site, there is so much potential," she said.

Ms Hook said tourists coming to Orange would be seeking open space.

"They want to breathe, walk, ride bikes, be in open space," she said.

"It is close enough to town, it is close enough to people living in south Orange and it is close enough to the hospital."

She said the council had stated in its decision in 2019 to shift the sports precinct to Bloomfield that if that site was not available, the 'objectives of the sports precinct are able to be achieved' at the NDR site.

Ms Hook said the meeting wanted council to know 'many, many people in the community are concerned about this development.'

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