BC Housing, along with the City of Kelowna and the Society of Hope, is building a new 75-unit affordable rental housing development in a vacant lot located in the Cambridge Avenue area.
The problem is, they are cutting down several 70-year-old trees to make way for the project. This has organizer Beverley Kalmakoff with the Kelowna Tree Protectors concerned.
“We’re not opposing the development, not at all. We’re just thinking that there is a different way that the buildings can be designed so that more of the trees can be saved,” said Kalmakoff.
Kalmakoff helped organize a “tree funeral” Monday, attended by members of the Kelowna Tree Protectors, and said her group has tried to get all parties involved to reconsider.
Kalmakoff said she wished the “architects had originally designed the buildings around the trees in order to preserve.”
“The development and these things take years to do and they are costly and we understand that,” said Kalmakoff.
“But the thing that happened was when the plans first started, nobody took the trees into consideration.”
The City of Kelowna told Global News an arborist did assess the area and came back with several recommendations.
However, the arborist said only 10 of the 27 trees were considered to be “healthy and structurally sound.” The city decided to only keep four of those heritage trees.
“Four mature trees are being protected in the northwest sector of the site and two new trees will be planted for every one that has to be removed,” said City of Kelowna media relations manager Tom Wilson.
“Many trees have been repeatedly topped thereby having poor structure and were not safe to retain, with extensive stem or root decay.”
The Kelowna Tree Protectors said what’s done is done, but the organization is optimistic city council will implement a tree bylaw in the near future to help protect and possibly prevent something like this from happening again.