Councillors call for public consultations on private-property trees

The city wants to let the public know how it plans to regulate trees on private property.

While the city waits for the province to let it know whether it will grant it the authority to control what happens to trees on undeveloped properties, councillors on the civic community services committee told bureaucrats Tuesday it wants them to initiate public consultations on its existing bylaw and future plans to regulate trees on private residential properties.

Coun. Cindy Gilroy said the public consultations are necessary because many Winnipeggers don’t realize the city already has the authority to determine what happens to trees on private properties “adjacent to a street” through the bylaw process.

Gilroy (Daniel McIntyre) said while councillors want to protect the city’s tree canopy, that doesn’t mean homeowners would never be able to remove trees from their properties, especially if they are dead or dying or have outgrown the space they were planted in, but they would have to seek permission.

“Eighty to 90 per cent of our trees are on private property,” she said. “The public has to understand they’re part of the solution. We’re going to start doing what we can do. We want to educate people on how important trees are.”

The recommendation now goes to executive policy committee and then city council.

Earlier, representatives from Outdoor Urban Recreational Spaces Winnipeg and Trees Please Winnipeg, urged councillors to protect trees on private property by simply following its existing bylaw, which controls removal of vegetation including trees, from properties adjacent to streets, while waiting for a more comprehensive tree policy to come forward a year from now.

“Delays in action only exacerbate the issue of losing more and more healthy mature trees,” said Dave Green, co-chair of OURS Winnipeg.

Erna Buffie of Trees Please Winnipeg said while the province needs to change the city’s charter in order for councillors to draft a comprehensive private tree bylaw, it wants the city to “exercise the power it does have now to protect trees on private properties adjacent to streets.

Buffie said the city is “currently losing thousands of mature trees on private land to construction and development and no one is counting those losses.

“While we can’t save every tree, action now on a reasonable and considered private tree bylaw would help to limit those losses,” she said.

kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca