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Orangeville council looks to improve local tree preservation standards

August 7, 2025   ·   0 Comments

By JAMES MATTHEWS

If council asks Orangeville’s residents to do something, then the municipality should operate in a shared manner under the same rules.

Council directed staff in May 2023 to suggest a framework for the development of a tree preservation bylaw that included community input. The public survey found that the majority of respondents agreed that a tree bylaw should be used to avoid the unnecessary removal of trees and to control how trees are removed.

The town’s tree canopy provides many economic, social, and environmental benefits. The 2023 Urban Tree Canopy Assessment determined that Orangeville’s tree canopy is 24 per cent of the total land mass with 79 per cent being located on privately-owned properties and 21 per cent located on public property.

This assessment found that the tree canopy is providing Orangeville with $471,206 ecosystem services annually. Those are air quality improvement and stormwater management. Each year, the canopy sequesters about 790 metric tons of carbon dioxide valued at more than $163,000.

In 2024, the town spent a total of $361,971 on tree-related expenditures, including maintenance, removal, replacement, planting and removal of public ash trees.

Current investments made by the town towards the tree canopy are only made on municipal public property. The town invests money into maintaining just over one-fifth or 21 per cent of the total tree canopy. The remaining 79 per cent of the tree canopy, which is located on private property, is left unregulated.

Councillor Tess Prendergast said she supports a tree preservation bylaw because a healthy tree canopy is essential to a community’s health, climate resilience, and long-term sustainability.

“If we’re going to ask residents to take on new responsibilities, we also need to hold ourselves to the same account, if not higher standards,” she said.

There’s been much concern among residents about the town’s trees and their maintenance, she said. She heard that evidence of that worry on many occasions since her election.

“Just recently, I heard three complaints about trees being planted during the heat wave, which are now dead,” Prendergast said.

Specifically, she asked if such incidents are due to the town’s reliance on contracted services without adequate, consistent oversight.

The proposed tree preservation legislation should be practical and balanced, with clear communication and public education as the foundation, she said.

“It’s also important that it be implemented in a way that does not create significant financial impacts for the town or resident,” Prendergast said.

She suggested it is time the town looked at an urban forest management setup in which tree planting, maintenance, and bylaw enforcement fall under clear parameters of accountability and responsibility.

“It seems like the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing sometimes,” Prendergast said.

Orangeville is home to some people who are well-versed in good forest management practices, but some hired contractors have what seems to be less of a knowledge base.

“So there’s a missing piece I would like to see addressed in this bylaw,” Prendergast said.

Tim Kocialek, the town’s infrastructure services general manager, said there were some trees planted before the recent heat wave. Those days when the sun and humidity enveloped Orangeville like a choking gauze.

It was a cool and wet spring that prevented some plantings in the wetter areas.

“We do have a two-year warranty,” he said. “Any trees that do pass away, they’re replaced at no cost to the town.”

Prendergast said the concern isn’t just about trees.

“These are trees,” she said. “And it’s about the appropriateness of the tree in the right place and people having the wherewithal who call themselves tree professionals planting during a heat wave.”

She asked why the town would open its coffers for anybody to do that.

“It doesn’t matter if it’s covered under warranty,” Prendergast said. “It’s wasteful.”

David Smith, the town’s CAO, said he doesn’t see a connection between Prendergast’s comments and a tree preservation bylaw. But their accepted standard will be not to plant during a heat wave.

“It’s two separate things, although connected,” he said.

Prendergast said the town spends a lot of money on contractors who have done poor work. If residents are expected to employ the best tree management practices on their properties, the town should do the same.

Seems quite simple.

Council agreed that staff will provide in September an outline of the proposed bylaw framework, including resourcing implications and a proposed implementation plan.

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