Updates to Burlington's Private Tree Bylaw Help Streamline & Improve Implementation

Burlington Council recently received an update on our City's Private Tree Bylaw from staff, outlining improvements to its implementation in the community.The purpose of the staff report was to provide a program update to Council on the status of the current City of Burlington private tree by-law 40-2022 within the urban boundary since it was repealed and replaced in April 2022. In addition, the report serves to identifyproposed future improvements and recommendations for consideration and further discussion.For a link to the staff report, please scroll further down this post.MY TAKE:I’m proud this Council was able to land some version of a bylaw last term and that we’ve been able to make the necessary adjustments and modifications needed along the way since then. I’m appreciative of the data we now have -- we had no idea how many trees were coming down and why, prior to implementing this bylaw. We now have the data to know the process is working too. I want to thank our amazing staff in the Forestry Department for their great work on this file.

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To read the staff report and related supporting documents, please click/tap the links below:

• Staff report: RPF-04-23 Private Tree By-Law Update.pdf

BACKGROUND:Following a series of discussions with Council through 2021 and 2022, the private tree by-law was repealed and replaced on April 19, 2022 to streamline the process while still ensuring the original intent of the by-law was captured.The public and private tree by-laws are administered by the Forest Protection branch of the Forestry section. In addition, this team provides inter-departmental support as subject matter experts for other tree related matters.With the changes implemented in 2022 as a result of the repeal and replace initiative for the private tree by-law, staff noted some improvement in the administration of the program with a reduction in the maintenance related permit requests (affirming the two [2] metre exemption was not being utilized correctly), a better understanding and planning ability for customers relative to replacement requirements, and the achievement in the council approved cost recovery of 30%. Further improvements are expected in 2023, as many of the process changes (e.g., new online e-form) made to the program were implemented late 2022 and into spring 2023.There was a reduction (21%) in applications received across all three permit streams (pre-building, pools, and general trees), and a slight decrease (4%) in other file types reviewed (e.g., property standard support) compared to that observed in 2021. However, although there was a reduction in applications received in 2022, a number of files received in 2021 that were either on hold or under review were also processed and this will continue the more years the program operates. This combined with the broadening of the scope of this program to more than what was initially intended, along with further changes either on a corporate level or legislatively (e.g., Planning Act), it isexpected that the number of files requiring review in 2023 and beyond will increase.Staff intend to continue implementing process related improvements to the program to better the overall customer experience while maintaining the corporate initiatives and meeting the goals for canopy targets, however to do so, additional resources to support the delivery may be required.