Trees in Calgary

[DougB]

I actually work for an arborist and I have to say that needing a permit to remove trees is a dumb idea. We do a lot of work in a community where permits are needed to remove trees and it's literally dumb how much bureaucracy is involved just to remove a dead or dangerous tree.

That being said, grants for homeowners to plant trees is a great idea, especially if those trees where good canopy trees and long living.

I gotta say the cities urban forestry program is pretty weak overall. They should be planting 3x the number of trees they are and we really should be creating more space for trees in how we design streets and sidewalks regardless land use.

When I lived in Washington state, the municipality had a bylaw requiring approval to remove trees. All that did was encourage people to poison trees so that they could obtain the permit.

The City of Calgary should focus on sustaining the trees that it plants before planting more. Seems like a large number of trees planted on City land don't survive due to lack of water, exposure to road salt, planting in poor locations or planting at the wrong time of year. When I lived there, planting between mid April and mid June seemed best to set trees up for survival. Planting in the Fall seemed to almost always fail.

 

[Mountain Man]

Agreed, the city needs to stay in it's lane on this one. With another drought year coming, I think our tree canopy is going to be in trouble, and it's going to be the street trees that take the biggest hit.