By Pepper Parr
June 22, 2016
BURLINGTON, ON
BurlingtonGreen advised us this morning that the City is hosting an open house this Thursday, June 23rd between 7:00 and 9:00 pm about a possible private property tree bylaw for the Roseland Community.
The informal ‘drop in’ open house event will be held at Central Park Arena Auditorium, 519 Drury Lane The Greens are encouraging people to attend and speak up for the rights of the trees.
Burlington Green said they understood the City distributed invitations to the open house to residents of the Roseland Community.
Mayor Rick Goldring has tip-toed around a private tree bylaw – the Greens want him to be more direct. They are advocating for a practical, effective private property tree protection bylaw and supports the implementation of a pilot tree by-law project in Roseland as a key first step to potentially advance a city-wide bylaw, joining 16 other Ontario municipalities that already have private tree by-laws in place.
From producing clean air and adding beauty and property value, to protecting watersheds and mitigating flood damage, trees are an integral part of our community.
Belvenia on the east side of Burlington.
“A tree is a very modest investment in a community and as it grows it is the only asset in the entire city infrastructure that increases in value as it grows”
The Mayor does face a determined group that feel a tree on their property is their property and they can do whatever they wish with that tree. It takes political courage and a will to lead to overcome this kind of thinking.
How ironic that at the same time as the City is allowing The big Developers to cover their entire lots with highrise buildings with no area ever in which a tree can ever be planted. The same holds true for plaza development. Same as the midrise buildings, yup no trees. If you have been up in North Burlington lately the Big Money developers are being allowed in the new subdivisions to cover there lots with new homes at 50% Lot coverage. Once you add a driveway to that and a rear deck and pool and shed. There will be no place to plant a tree ever. Townhouse sites are even worse. The large Developers in Burlington, the guys and girls that run this City. Have been allowed to destroy this City and turn it into a concrete Jungle. Money talks around here. It now appears that the homeowners in South Burlington are expected to make up and compensate for the irresponsible development deals made with the large developers. Is this supposed to make people forget what is happening in North Burlington. Also a small selfish group in Roseland are pushing for this by-law to make it a more complicated and expensive process to develop and build in this area in an attempt to stop older homes in their areas from being torn down and replaced and severences being granted. These folks want development in all the other peoples neighborhoods. These folks oppose everything and appear to be loosing just about all the decisions being made at City Hall against the will of the majority in this area, who want nothing to do with this group. I guarantee you these unsuspecting homeowners have not been told that this tree cutting By-law will cost them 4 to 10 thousand dollars and cutting trees now can be done for free. The facts show that very few trees are cut down in our City with 3 million trees. Just a question? with all these supposed benefits trees bring to this City. Should you not be focusing on tree planting. Oakville has a Do nothing by-law. More trees are cut in Oakville than Burlington.The rights of trees? When I eat my salad or eat an apple? have I committed a crime. The Roseland special interest group is the author of this by-law attempt.Thats why it is not City wide. If 16 municipalities have passed a tree by-law I guess that means the other 420 have not. Maybe they know something?
Oakville’s private tree bylaw is fine however it’s more of a notification process than a permit requirement, presumably to keep track of the number of trees in the city.
If you want to remove a tree less than 76 cm across and you aren’t removing more than 5 trees in one year, it’s OK, just let the city know. The street I live on has approximately 60 mature trees on private property, only one would require a permit.
Interestingly, if the trees in the photo of Belvenia St. were on private property each owner could remove 5 per year as they appear to be well under 76 cm in diameter.
The trees on private property seem fine are not the issue. The issue is developers reconfiguring property to remove all trees and provide no space for large trees to every grow again. The developers always seem to find arborists that declare every tree on the property a “danger” or “old” etc …
So much for property rights. Burlington’s party boss is on board.