Edmonton city council voted down a motion to explore a bylaw that would aim to protect trees on private property across the city Tuesday.
In a tie, councillors Karen Principe, Jennifer Rice, Erin Rutherford, Ashley Salvador, Anne Stevenson and Keren Tang voted against the motion while councillors Tim Cartmell, Sarah Hamilton, Michael Janz, Andrew Knack, Aaron Paquette and Jo-Anne Wright voted in favour. Mayor Amarjeet Sohi was absent for the vote.
City administration did not support the motion, in part because it could have a negative impact on density and affordability, according to Kim Petrin, acting deputy city manager of urban planning.
“Administration does not recommend advancing a scenario where more priority is given to preserving a tree than to housing Edmontonians, nor one which adds significant time and costs to assessing trees for retention for development,” Petrin said.
Cartmell said the city should try to protect trees while encouraging high-density development.
“If our only focus is going to be to jam in as many residential units as we can on every single lot, we’re not going to have a problem because no one’s coming here,” he said.
City administration also recommended against the bylaw because, according to staff, enforcing it would be difficult and costly.
The city estimates it would cost about $1 million to develop the bylaw and ongoing costs would depend on the scope of the bylaw, staffing and the approach to enforcement.
“We can better use our resources in other ways to meet our objectives and deal with some of the big issues we have on our plate,” Rutherford said in the council meeting.
“It creates additional red tape at a time where we’re trying to reduce that red tape.”
“The impact of such a bylaw on our tree canopy goal is unclear,” said Craig McKeown, branch manager of parks and road services at the city.
The city’s goal is that 20 per cent of the city will be covered by urban tree canopy by 2071. The current number is 13 per cent.
“With the current plans we have in place … we’re on track to be able to meet those targets,” said McKeown.
McKeown added the city is also on track to meet its goal of planting two million new trees by 2030.
The city requires most new developments to plant or preserve a certain number of trees and shrubs in its landscaping.
As for new ways to encourage keeping and planting trees, the city is considering more incentives and changing design standards so that more trees are required when the city redesigns a road or another city-owned property.
Knack said incentives to preserve trees on mature lots have been tried before, when the city first introduced lot-splitting in 2015, but he said it didn’t work to protect trees in a significant way.
“I think that’s why we continue to hear about this from communities, almost all mature communities across the city, and why I’ve been hearing about it now for close to a decade,” said Knack.