Barrie city council essentially took an axe to the new tree bylaw last night.
It had mostly been about new regulations for single trees, which are affected by construction, on private property.
But it ended up being something different.
“It appears to me we're trying to fix a problem that doesn’t exist,” Coun. Gary Harvey said of the motion council began with at Wednesday night’s meeting.
“Sometimes we can’t make all the changes in one day,” said Mayor Alex Nuttall. “Sometimes it has to be changed incrementally.”
What council approved was amending the city’s fees bylaw to include an ecological offsetting fee of $57,500 per hectare, and $500 per tree for individual tree replacement value, as an interim measure until an ecological offsetting policy is approved by council — with woodlots larger than 0.5 hectares in the Nottawasaga Valley Conservation Authority (NVCA) areas, purchased prior to April 5, 2023, being exempt from these fees.
City staff will also form a tree bylaw standards sub-committee that includes representatives from the land development and professional consulting community to review and update tree protection standards, explore additional community partnerships and incentive programs, such as grants, and educational programs to plant more trees on private land.
The city will also hire a full-time restoration ecologist to administer the program, and establish an ecological offsetting reserve to achieve no net loss of trees, located on private land, through a tree-planting program.
Struck from the private tree bylaw motion, through Coun. Bryn Hamilton’s amendment, was keeping the paperwork for construction, development and woodlot management from a certified arborist for no less than a year, hiring a full-time urban forester, and having a certified arborist’s report to remove a tree for a use permitted by the zoning bylaw when there is no reasonable alternative to taking down the tree.
Also removed from the motion was the need for a report certifying a tree’s removal is in accordance with good forestry management, marking a tree for seven days before it’s removed, and posting the permit to remove a tree in a conspicuous place on the affected property.
“I don’t think we should be putting in a huge bureaucracy to solve a problem that doesn’t exist,” said Coun. Clare Riepma.
Karen Hansen, of Crisdawn Construction, asked council for an exemption from the bylaw.
Crisdawn owns a number of Barrie properties, including 1001 Essa Rd., 71 acres (or 28.7 hectares) of land at the southeast corner of Salem Road and Highway 27, fronting Essa Road.
The County of Simcoe operated it as a plantation, as has Crisdawn since its purchase from the county. The land is zoned agricultural.
While this land could be developed in the future, Crisdawn wants it to be a cash-crop property in the interim.
Crisdawn wants an exemption from Barrie’s tree bylaw, so it reads: :The injury or destruction of trees on the lands municipally known as 1001 Essa Rd., (it) being a cultural plantation. For clarity, ecological offsetting fees do not apply to the injury or destruction of trees on these lands."
Hansen says this exemption is consistent with the existing Lake Simcoe Region Conservation Authority (LSRCA) and NVCA policies on ecological offsetting, which exempt plantations from payment of an ecological offsetting fee.
She cites LSRCA offsetting policy which states "ecological offsetting will also not be required for woodlands that are plantations managed for the production of fruits, nuts, Christmas trees, nursery stock or tree products or for woodlands identified smaller than 0.5 hectares."
The city’s tree bylaw includes an ecological offsetting fee of $57,500 per hectare of woodland removal, and $500 per tree for individual tree replacement value, as an interim measure until an ecological offsetting policy gets council approval.
Hansen said if that fee was applied to 1001 Essa Rd., it would cost Crisdawn $1,461,650.
“It looks like the extra $1.46 million, which would not have been previously charged, will not be imposed on our site now, or I think on any woodlots previously under NVCA (authority), bought before April 5,” she said. “But … if a site transfers hands going forward, I think the fee applies.”
Mark Graves, president of the Ontario Commercial Arborist Association, said a private tree bylaw is no easy task.
“Urban forestry is a very challenging subject,” he said in a deputation to council. “The argument is for trying to protect your urban canopy now rather than fighting for it later.”
Johnny Corner, owner/operator of Northshore Tree Experts in Barrie, said much the same.
“We definitely need to be protecting our urban trees and keep our canopy growing,” he said. “If done well we can grow our trees without incurring any more expense.”
There have also been questions about how the new bylaw will be impacted by new provincial housing initiatives. The province says it’s committed to building 1.5 million new homes during the next decade and Bill 23, the More Homes Built Faster Act of 2022, is part of a long-term strategy to increase housing supply and provide attainable housing options for Ontarians.
“Growth will impact our tree canopy for generations to come,” said the Allandale Neighbourhood Association's Cathy Colebatch, who also made a deputation to council.
Ontario’s Municipal Act states a municipality may prohibit or regulate the destruction or injuring of trees. Individual or single tree bylaws are designed to mitigate future damage of privately owned trees due to private construction and excavation projects.
Since 1990, all trees on private property that are within an ecological woodlot of half an acre or more have been protected by Barrie’s private tree bylaw — which prohibits or regulates the injuring or destruction of trees on private property in the city.
Provincial direction to increase density in existing neighbourhoods and create more affordable housing, such as second suites, within existing properties has raised the question of protection of individual trees on residential lots, not just trees that are part of woodlots.
Barrie’s total area of 24,876 acres has approximately 7,576 acres of tree canopy on private and public land — 71 per cent on private property, 29 per cent on public land.
In 2018, the total canopy cover was measured, via satellite photography, at 30.5 per cent of the city’s land base.
Of the total tree canopy area, 2,184 acres are protected on public land by the public tree bylaw and 3,296 acres are regulated by the existing private tree bylaw.
The remaining 2,184 acres, or 28 per cent of the tree canopy, is not regulated under a tree bylaw.
