'Completely wrong': Unionville tree fences cause unintended consequences

Yorkregion.com
May 17, 2022

Every fence has two sides.

Ironically, protective plastic fences for trees turned out to be destructive to the community environment in Unionville.

In Markham, when a building permit is filed and before approved, tree fences must be erected to protect trees from construction damage.

But the permit approval does not happen overnight, and these plastic fences are definitely not built to last.

They disintegrate in the weather, and the plastic remnants end up on the ground, blowing down the street and washing away into parks, ravines, storm sewers and local streams, where they degrade further over the next several thousand years -- long after the trees they were intended to protect have come and gone.

"This is completely wrong," said a resident, who speaks on condition of anonymity because he happens to have a building permit approval that is currently working its way through the system.

"Obviously someone has not thought this through, and we (and future generations) will all be affected by the unintended consequences," he said.

The resident has lived in Unionville since 2004 and noticed his neighbourhood has changed a lot as a result of infill development.

"Most of the new builds around here are nice and change is usually good," he said.

But for the last few years, he had to look at the unsightly view on his street, with the orange plastic pieces scattered around in tree-fenced areas on the surrounding streets of Varley Village in the heart of Unionville.

So who is responsible for their maintenance, so that the fences don't get to the point where they are disintegrating? That is a complicated question.

Markham maintains that it is the homeowner's responsibility. That situation is fine if the homeowner has taken out the building permit and still lives in the house as it awaits the start of construction.

However, it becomes problematic if the homeowner doesn't live on the property -- but instead lives outside the region, province or even in another country, as can be the case in Unionville.

These absentee owners are neither able nor interested in maintaining the fences, let alone ensuring that the area inside the fence doesn't grow tall with weeds and fill up with garbage.

Typically in Unionville, homes purchased for demolition and reconstruction are occupied by renters until construction begins. From observation, most renters are not motivated to maintain the tree fences or to cut the grass and maintain the area inside the tree fences.

"So now Unionville residents are stuck with the problem and the associated eyesores," said the resident.

What to do? Enforcing maintenance and cleanup will not be effective if the owners are not around. Even small fines are not very effective in the context of multi-million-dollar builds. The renters cannot be held responsible since it is not really their problem. The design of these barriers has made it impossible to obtain access, and it's impossible to prevent the plastic from disintegrating, according to residents.

Mayor Frank Scarpitti agrees the fences are being installed too early, and council is in the process of updating the city's tree preservation zone fencing bylaw, with proposed changes to be discussed later in May.

"We're going to shorten the timeline of when they get installed," said Scarpitti. "So they won't be on the street a year or two in advance of the construction. It'll be much closer to when the construction will happen."

The city will also introduce a letter of credit financial tool to make sure the fences are installed and maintained by house owners, or by city staff but at the cost of owners.

"We will give only part of the letter of credit back (to owner) when it gets installed in case we need to repair the fence, if the owner is not acting quickly enough to repair it," said the mayor.

"We'll spend their money for them to fix the fence if they don't do it in a timely fashion."