Council approves private tree bylaw for Roseland, consideration of city-wide tree bylaw in 2019

At our June 18 meeting, City Council unanimously approved a private tree bylaw for the Roseland community, to be implemented on November 1, 2018 as a two-year pilot program. Council also approved undertaking community consultation on a city-wide private tree bylaw.Consultation will begin after Nov. 1 with staff reporting back to the new City Council in the second quarter of 2019 on options, recommendations and financial impacts for the city-wide implementation of a private tree by-law.Click to read the staff report and Roseland tree bylawMy Take: Though it's been a long time coming, I support the private tree bylaw pilot for Roseland, and rolling out a private tree bylaw city-wide. The bylaw would help track how many private trees are removed and why, provide opportunity for a conversation around retention and replacement, and collect fees for removal, that would go into a tree planting fund.Tree planting and preservation is sorely needed in the urban area of Burlington, which has a tree canopy of about 17% where the recommended canopy according to Conservation Halton is 30-50%. I support setting a tree canopy target in this range; currently Burlington has no target.