Two Port Moody councillors are urging the city do more to protect its trees, including those on private property.
In a report that is to be presented to council at Tuesday's meeting, councillors Amy Lubik and Meghan Lahti said city bylaws need to be more specific when trying to preserve “significant” trees because the terminology isn’t defined. They said that leaves it to council to determine what is meant by the bylaw.
The report also calls for the city to develop a way to record where its significant trees are.
“If we do not have a way to identify them, we cannot protect them," according to the duo's report to council.
Lahti and Lubik said they would like to see specific definitions for “significant” that relate to the trees’ size and species as well as definitions to designate “specimen” and “heritage” trees.
They cited the recent launch in Port Coquitlam of an online portal through which residents can nominate significant and heritage trees as a way to get the community involved.
The report also calls for more protection for trees on private property,
The councillors said while Port Moody has protections in place for trees on public property and in environmentally sensitive areas, the city should fall in line with neighbouring municipalities — including Burnaby, Coquitlam and Port Coquitlam — that extend those protections to trees on private property as well, to the extent that development permits could even be altered to retain more trees.
The pair also suggested the city’s requirement to replace removed trees could be scaled so larger trees are replaced with more trees.
The councillors said in their report the guidelines are needed because increasing the tree canopy is one way to mitigate the effects of climate change, adding an abundant tree canopy can reduce the temperature in a neighbourhood by three to 10 degrees.
“Protecting our urban trees and urban canopy are actions that we can take that have a wide range of benefits to our community.”
