Dear Candidate:

Guelph Urban Forest Friends is a local group that advocates for better protection of urban trees and canopy. We make delegations to City Council, hold events to raise awareness about the importance of urban trees, and distribute information about the many benefits of trees, and the threats to trees, through our web site.

We have serious concerns about the continued loss of mature trees in our City and hear frequently from upset residents about tree removals. We are submitting these questions to candidates for City Council and respectfully request your response by October 18. The responses we receive will be posted on our web site and e-mailed to our list of 500 supporters.

For further information, please check our website (www.guffguelph.ca) or contact us. Thank you for your response. GUFF

Karolyne Pickett – Ward 1 Candidate

1.  Currently all tree planting, maintenance and removal activities are the responsibility of the City’s Operations Department.  Will you support and advocate for establishing an Urban Forest department headed by a forester with a degree in urban forestry?  Why or why not.

I agree that decisions with respect to protecting our existing trees and planting new trees should be based on recommendations made by city foresters qualified in the field of urban forestry. Furthermore, those decisions are of an urban design and planning nature, not an operational one. If elected I will work with city staff to determine where in the organization it would make most sense to house city foresters, with the Planning Division being one option.

2.  Shade is important for reducing the heat island effect and for reducing the risk of skin cancer.  Will you support and advocate for establishing a shade policy which would set goals for shade coverage along streets/sidewalks, in parking lots and in parks?  Why or why not.

Absolutely. In fact, I think our City shade policy should go beyond establishing goals for streets, parking lots and parks, and include minimum requirements for tree cover of new residential, commercial and institutional subdivisions, consistent with the City’s tree coverage goal. Hedgerows with mature trees are consistently deemed expendable and removed in the course of development, yet they provide shade, contribute to canopy cover, and most importantly provide essential linkages between habitats.

3.  There is currently no program in place to recognize or protect trees that are exceptionally large, old or have a significant history in the City.  Will you support and advocate for a city program to be adopted during the next term of council aimed at designating and protecting Heritage Trees?  Why or why not.

Although Guelph’s Mission Statement includes preservation of our natural and cultural heritage, it does appear that heritage planning in Guelph is focused on cultural heritage. Therefore I support the idea of protecting heritage trees explicitly. It has been done in other cities so there are models that we can learn from to develop our own. If elected I will propose expanding the city’s heritage planning mandate to specifically include heritage trees, and work with city staff on how to best integrate natural heritage planning with that of cultural heritage.

4.  Though the City has adopted a goal of 40% tree canopy coverage, information about tree canopy loss due to development, road construction, etc. is not being collected.  Will you support and advocate for collecting publicly accessible data, funded in the next budget cycle, on the annual removal of mature trees and loss of canopy within the City?  Why or why not.

Without baseline data we will not be able to measure progress towards our tree canopy coverage goal, so yes, I support the development of a municipal database that will record and track canopy loss due to tree removal. I want this data collection to be required of any proponent of an activity that will result in the removal of trees.

5.  The City does not have an inventory of trees in our urban forest (species, size, health, etc.), nor are trees given value as “assets” or “green infrastructure.”  Will you support and advocate for an inventory of trees in the City, including the dollar value of the trees (using currently available computer programs that compute the dollar value of ecological services provided by trees)?  Why or why not.

The first point relates to the previous question, in that measuring progress towards our canopy cover goal begins with an assessment of our current canopy cover. This data should be recorded in the municipal database mentioned above. At this point I do not support taxpayers funding a dollar value computation of our trees: as a conservation biologist, I am aware of the recent economic research related to attaching a dollar value to ecological goods and services, but I don’t believe it has reached a point where those assessments do justice to the value of plant and animal life. That being said, given that on-the-ground experience will help advance this emerging field of economics, I will support requiring the evaluation of the ecological value of trees that developers (whether private or the municipality itself) are proposing to remove. It is clear that currently, environmental costs of development are not being fully measured.

6.  City Council recently passed a tree by-law which requires permits for removing large trees on properties over half an acre in size.  This tree by-law only covers a small percentage of properties within the City.  Will you support and advocate for expanding the existing tree by-law to cover all properties in Guelph?  Why or why not.

Increasing the size of the properties to which the by-law applies was not the appropriate way to address the concerns raised by residents, nor does the revised by-law have much value given the small percentage of properties it now applies to. Residents’ concerns largely revolved around the onerous process and cost associated with having trees assessed, and I think Council should have addressed those issues directly, rather than attempting to deal with complaints by limiting the number of residents the by-law would apply to. I will support addressing the problematic process-related aspects of the original by-law proposal. The by-law is a good first step, and I’ll support revisiting it in one or two years’ time, so that we can improve it based on lessons learned during its early implementation stage.

Karolyne Pickett