640 trees lost during pilot program
Temporary relaxing of protection bylaw led to bigger hit to canopy than expected
After a year-long pilot project that allowed homeowners to cut down trees up to 30 centimetres in diameter without a permit, Vancouver is being urged to scrap the change because the 640 trees lost during that period were more than the city expected.
The change last June to Vancouver's protection of trees bylaw, which also allowed homeowners and builders in certain situations to forgo an arborist report before a tree was removed, was intended to eliminate a bottleneck in the application process for residential building permits, according to a city staff report.
The change, along with others, did speed up processing times for building permits, but the amendment “has resulted in a greater than anticipated loss in tree canopy,” according to the report, which was posted to the city's website.
Staff said there were 240 trees between 20 and 30 cm staff knew of that had been removed in the past year because they were identified during the permit application process. Staff estimated an additional 400 trees of that size were removed from private lands.
Their removal resulted in “an increase in the number and severity of complaints,” the report said.
“Staff are proposing to mitigate this (loss of canopy) by reverting the requirement for a tree permit back to 20 cm,” the report said.
If council adopts the staff recommendations, permits would again be required later this month for any tree larger than 20 cm around, according to an emailed statement from a city staffer who said she wasn't a spokeswoman and therefore couldn't be named.
Other changes, which included limiting the need for an arborist report for trees over a certain size or where there are no safety issues — for instance, when there were no trees on the property or they didn't affect a renovation of just a bathroom — were supported by developers, the report said.
The city is experiencing “a large and growing backlog ” of development permit applications, which the changes in the pilot project improved, the report noted.
“However, the amendment to the protection of trees bylaw has resulted in greater than anticipated loss in tree canopy,” the report concluded. “Staff are proposing to mitigate this by reverting the requirement for a tree permit back to 20 cm.”
The loss of the 640 trees in a year “does seem like a relatively large number,” said a certified arborist, who would only comment without having his name published because he had to deal with city permit staff. He said he could only recommend a tree of “bylaw size” be removed from a property if it were diseased or posing a danger or impeding underground pipes, for instance.
And for every tree removed, another had to be planted in its place, which he said without an arborist's report and permit, he doubted was done for those hundreds of trees.
“That is going to be a great canopy loss,” he said.
In light of the city's declaration of a climate emergency, “we should be working toward increasing canopy and not allowing trees to be removed without an arborist report,” said Jennifer Henry, executive director of the Society Promoting Environmental Conservation. “We support protecting the city 's trees of all sizes.”
Vancouver's tree canopy increased to 23 per cent in 2018, from 18 per cent in 2014. The city had planted 150,000 trees during those years and it aims to double the number of trees in low-tree neighbourhoods, such as Marpole and the Downtown Eastside.