General News

Some Orangeville residents say tree bylaw is a good start

December 11, 2025   ·   0 Comments

By JAMES MATTHEWS

It may be that Orangeville’s proposed bylaw to protect and bolster the municipal tree canopy needs some tweaking so as not to handcuff property owners.

That’s despite survey results indicating much support for a proposed tree preservation bylaw.

According to a public survey, 81 per cent of respondents agree a private tree bylaw should ensure controlled tree removal, 78 per cent believe the town should do more to protect and maintain trees, and 74 per cent say the bylaw should help avoid unnecessary tree removals.

Seventy-two per cent support protecting the town’s tree canopy, and 66 per cent think the number of trees is decreasing in Orangeville.

Mark Middleton has two massive trees on his Zina Street property. He said they could be as old as 70 years, and he wanted to know how a resident would discern whether or not a tree is dying.

“One side of it has already fallen over, so we had to cut that off,” Middleton said. “It is dying off.”

He has planted some trees to take over the space, he said.

Katherine Rog, the town’s senior climate and sustainability specialist, said an arborist would be required to determine the health of a tree.

Wade Speirs has lived in Orangeville for about 15 years, and he lauded the town’s efforts to preserve the tree canopy.

“I feel that we’re failing the whole program if we don’t have a dedicated arborist on staff,” he said.

The program’s success depends on having a certified arborist with tree risk assessment qualifications, Speirs said.

Barbara Whyton said she is a tree-lover who enjoys a cottage in Muskoka surrounded by nature. But she said the tree preservation goes too far, trampling on the rights of ownership.

Orangeville residents who pay taxes on a property and want to build a back deck shouldn’t be influenced by a tree in the way.

“That should be our right to be able to do what we want, within reason, on our property that we pay taxes to the town for,” Whyton said. “If we want to better our property and make it look nice and enjoy it, we should be able to do so.”

Simply put, people should be free to do what they want in their backyard to better enjoy their home and property.

A resident since 1978, she has a beautiful crimson maple in her backyard.

“Which I love,” she said of the tree. “But it is getting closer to the house.”

It has been trimmed in the past, and its roots are beginning to show above the ground. She said there may come a time when that tree has to come down. It may create a situation in which a healthy tree could soon cause damage to the house, a neighbour’s property or fence.

She said there have to be alternatives for bolstering the town’s tree canopy.

“People coming in, tourists or whatever, they’re not going to see what’s going on in people’s backyards,” Whyton said. “They’re going to see what’s going on in the streets.”

That said, planting trees on thoroughfare boulevards is better than telling property owners what to do, she said.

“We are running out of space on the boulevards,” Rog said. “And we are running out of public space to plant additional trees.”

She said the bylaw’s enforcement would be complaint-based. Unless a neighbour is upset by somebody removing their own tree, the issue wouldn’t be brought to the town’s attention. Even if that happens, the town will weigh the circumstances.

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