The Town of Saugeen Shores will be considering a tree removal by-law in the future when the Urban Tree Canopy Plan is complete.
Council approved reviewing the by-law at a future date after some suggestions were made by staff during a meeting on July 15.
Mayor Luke Charbonneau says the suggested by-law would affect how trees are protected in Saugeen Shores by outlining a clear prohibition of cutting, trimming, removing, and injuring trees on municipal property as well as establish fines and penalties.
“The report included the idea of some new regulations for cutting trees on municipal property. We sometimes see folks take matters into their own hands and cut public trees and that is obviously something that is really concerning, so having better regulations around that is an idea and also the potential of regulating tree cutting on private lands as well,” says Charbonneau.
Charbonneau adds he believes people taking it upon themselves to cut down municipal trees is an issue.
“We have had instances relatively routinely where folks, for example if they live on the waterfront and they want a better sight line to the water, where they might venture onto public land and cut a tree. That is something the municipality really finds concerning and unacceptable,” says Charbonneau.
He says while some trees need to be cut, it should be done by the municipality in public interest.
This by-law is part of the work to develop the Urban Tree Canopy Plan, which comes from a committee recommendation in 2022.
“It involves taking an inventory of our tree canopy and looking at the types of trees that we have, really getting our arms around what we have, what we should have and what we need to do to get to the kind of tree canopy we want to have and preserve that tree canopy,” says Charbonneau.
He says work is ongoing and anticipates they will see and enact the plan this year.
