King residents divided over township's proposed tree bylaw

King Connection
March 13, 2014
By Tim Kelly

King Township council and staff got an earful of suggestions from a half dozen public speakers on a proposed tree bylaw.

Most were against control of cutting down trees on private property in urban areas, while a few favoured some limits.

Years in the making, the bylaw is still in the draft stage. It’s likely to be finalized in May.

It has received careful consideration to this point, with much of the public input to date suggesting the Township encourage more tree planting and avoid bringing in permit fees, among other things.

Some residents worried the Township was infringing on their property rights.

As a result of all the feedback, council has recommended the final bylaw only apply to the urban boundary of King City, Schomberg and Nobleton, not the rural areas of the Township, which is covered under York Region’s tree bylaw concerning woodlots and woodlands.

Permit conditions would be reduced and staff are proposing allowing permits to be granted for the removal of healthy trees.

Staff is urging, in the meantime, that all residents “call before you cut”, so that trees are removed safely.

Residents are still required to contact the bylaw department, receive a permit at no fee under the draft proposal and have the work inspected.

If a property owner removes a tree without going through the process, he or she could be subject to a fine.

At the recent public meeting, King City resident Christopher Freeman argued that King Township should allow up to four trees per 12-month period or calendar year to be cut down.

“One has to rely on an owner’s common sense. If we were to move to the Aurora model, it would be more appropriate,” Mr. Freeman said.

For King City resident Uli Rentsch, an unabashed opponent of the bylaw, it would be better to shelve it for a while and forget about it.

“I would like to see you engage your creativity and develop programs to encourage people to plant more trees,” he said. “I was pretty upset when I saw this bylaw. I’m very much in favour of protecting the environment, but I think this is an unprecedented intrusion into responsible property management. To my knowledge, trees and private property are not wards of the state yet.”

However, the bylaw found favour with Gene Marchetta of Nobleton, who came home one day last summer to find his new neighbour chainsawing trees in their yard.

“This past fall, we had new neighbours. In the summer before they even moved in, we arrived home from work one day to the sound of chainsaws and trees falling on our neighbour’s property. We tried to phone someone to see if they were allowed to do this and no one was able to help us. There were no bylaws,” Mr. Marchetta said. “After listening to chainsaws for two weeks, 65 trees were cut on my neighbour’s property and this is just a normal subdivision property, maybe three-quarters of an acre. The skyline had changed on our street. It’s my opinion when the gentleman before me said people have common sense, well, unfortunately, there are people with no common sense. They could have bought a house on the other side of Hwy. 27, there’s no trees there. Instead, they chose to buy a wooded lot and cut the trees down before they moved in.

He added that he believes this bylaw would prevent this type of destruction of trees.

The bylaw will go back for further study and there will be more public consultation. A future public meeting has yet to be announced.