Proposed Corporate Tree Protection & Enhancement Policy Coming to Burlington Committee

Coming to the Environment, Infrastructure and Community Services (EICS) Committee this Thursday (Feb. 3), the Roads, Parks & Forestry (RPF) Department will be bringing a report to committee members on a proposed corporate tree protection and enhancement policy. If recommended at committee, this report will head for ratification to Council at our regular meeting on Feb. 15.Click the links below for the:

• Staff report: RPF-01-22-Proposed Corporate Tree Protection and Enhancement Policy
• Appendix: Appendix A to RPF-01-22 - Draft Policy

The recommendation in the staff report is to:

Approve the Corporate Tree Protection and Enhancement Policy, attached in Appendix A to roads, parks, and forestry department report RPF-01-22.

The Forestry Protection branch of RPF has identified the need for the City to have a corporate-wide policy for preserving and enhancing trees to help inform future City programs and guidelines that could impact Burlington's tree canopy. The aim is to make sure that no matter the scale or context of designs, construction or planning, the management of our urban forest and natural assets is done so in a consistent way.The City of Burlington currently has a corporate tree management policy that addresses the need to protect City-owned trees and give compensation for those that need to be removed. Given that Burlington's urban forest is made up of both public and privately-owned trees, staff want to create a city-wide protection and enhancement policy to ensure things are clearly defined when it comes to the value of trees and the urban forest as a whole. Staff want to ensure both of the City's tree bylaws have the clearly-defined position of the tree protection policy.In their report, staff note that creating a corporate-wide tree protection and enhancement policy will provide a framework for the consistent management of the City’s urban forest. Long-term, this will support the City’s Vision to Focus goal of achieving 35% canopy cover by 2041, and in doing so, will directly benefit the City’s efforts toward fighting the effects of climate change.

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Delegating at the Meeting:Residents who wish to will have the opportunity to delegate at the meeting. If you wish to arrange in advance to speak at the public meeting, please register online at www.burlington.ca/delegation. If you have presentation materials, they must be submitted to the Clerks Department at clerks@burlington.ca no later than noon (12 p.m.) one business day before the meeting to allow its distribution and review by all members of the Committee. The content of all submissions is considered to be public and will be posted to the City’s website.Speakers are limited to a maximum of 10 minutes each and are webcasted online.