Vaughan taxpayers could be on hook for special levy to cover brutal winter

YorkRegion.com
July 3, 2014
By Adam Martin-Robbins

This past winter was so brutal it not only destroyed thousands of trees, caused people's pipes to burst and left many with aching backs, it also took a serious toll on the city's coffers.

And that has a couple of Vaughan councillors weighing the need for a special tax levy to help cover some of the costs.

Three city staff reports recently presented to councillors outline how big a financial hit the city faces.

The devastating ice storm that slammed southern and eastern Ontario in late December took the biggest toll.

In a report to the finance committee last week, city staff pegged the total bill at $18.1 million, down from original projections of $21 million, including the cost of the initial emergency response, ongoing cleanup of damaged city property and future tree replacement.

While the provincial government may pick up much of that through the Ontario Disaster Relief Program, it won't cover the $7.2 million needed to replace 11,000 trees severely damaged during the storm.

In order to replace those trees without imposing a huge tax hike, city staff have proposed a six-year planting program starting next year and ending in 2021.

“We have a huge number of trees to plant and in order to do that we need good quality trees, a diversity of trees and the staff to get them in the ground,” said Jeffery Silcox-Childs, manager of parks services. “The nurseries are going to be under huge pressure to be producing trees and we don’t want quality to suffer. And, more importantly, we don’t want to have only a (slim) selection of trees. We want to be able to plant as many different species as possible to recreate a healthy, urban forest.”

The plan is to plant an additional 2,100 trees per year, on top of the usual 1,900, at a cost of between $1.2 and $1.6 million per year. That’s over and above the $1 million the city typically spends.

Replacement trees would be 50-mm caliper trees or 2.5-inches in thickness through the trunk at three to four feet above the ground, he said.

“The reality is smaller trees tend to suffer less transplant shock; they tend to get established quicker and they tend to exceed the growth of larger trees that you would plant,” Silcox-Childs said. “But we can’t plant really small trees because they’re not vandalism proof. So we have to find that happy medium.”

The city plans to concentrate on replacing trees in residential areas first, followed by parks then commercial and industrial areas.

“Where they had a large number of trees come down, we really want to focus on those neighbourhoods, get those trees back in and get that canopy recovered as quickly as possible,” he said. “If you think of that entire six-year plan, you can pretty much estimate that the first four years are heavily focused on residential and the later years we would be catching up on the park locations, and industrial/commercial areas.”

Regional Councillor Deb Schulte said residents are telling her they don’t want to wait that long.

She thinks the city should consider a special tax levy, similar to the one imposed to purchase the hospital lands, if homeowners really want the trees replaced more quickly.

“We’re in this challenge where we can’t do this without levying extra taxes and I don’t want to do it as a general tax increase. I want to do it as something special that can be monitored very closely and only, specifically, for this and then it ends,” she said. “But I think it needs a lot of discussion and we’ll have to get a feeling and a sense from the community whether they’re prepared to entertain that to restore the situation given the crisis that has occurred.”

Regional Councillor Michael Di Biase agrees.

“We’ll have community meetings (at budget time) and see how the residents feel,” he said. “It’s not easy, but our residents respond positively. I think when it comes to this problem, they’ll appreciate it and probably they’ll respond positively.”

Of course, residents can pay for a replacement tree themselves, if they want it done more quickly and if they want a larger one than the city provides, Silcox-Childs noted.

That requires going to the city’s website, filling out a form to schedule a meeting with an arborist who would determine what species could be planted and where it could go.

It’s not just replacing trees destroyed by the ice storm that is driving up costs at the city.

Vaughan’s snow clearing budget also took a wallop this winter.

Depending on how much snow flies in November and December, city staff estimate there could be a $5 million to $6.1 million shortfall.

The city has $4.4 million in reserves to cushion that blow, but taxpayers could be on the hook for some of it.

Councillor Schulte says if there is another harsh winter, the city might have to re-evaluate the services it provides.

“I’m not saying we go to the bottom of the barrel, but we have, in some sense, in the city and, in some places, very high levels of service,” she said. “I don’t think the public realizes it comes at a cost. I think there’s enough reluctance from the general public for us to just continuously increase taxes so we have to look at... synergies, efficiencies, and optimization of the programs that we’re doing.”