The Town of Qualicum Beach council dealt for the first time with an appeal to reconsider a decision by staff to reject a resident’s application to remove a tree from their property.
Town staff, under Tree Protection Bylaw No. 725, 2023, are authorized to issue permits to remove protected trees.
In this case, it advised council to refuse the property owner’s request for reconsideration.
Direct of planning Luke Sales informed council during its regular meeting on Jan. 17, that the property owner
had already taken out one tree over the size of what would considered protected in the bylaw.
“So because they already removed one, they didn’t qualify for the exemption,” said Sales, who explained that only one tree can be removed every two years.
Sales also added that staff went to look at the tree and found no indication the tree was in decline or hazardous. Staff also referred to an arborist assessment of the tree.
“There was an arborist report provided by the property owner that essentially didn’t find any flaws with the tree,” said Sales. “It was a relatively neutral report so the application for tree removal was declined.”
READ MORE: Qualicum Beach council adopts interim Tree Protection Bylaw
The property owner indicated in his application the tree is too close to the house with no root support from other trees.
Coun. Scott Harrison asked what is the level of risk for staff to grant a permit as the arborist report stated the overall risk for the tree is medium.
“The bylaw identifies imminent risk as a criteria,” Sales explained. “So there are specific criteria in there; also the town’s arborist did review the tree as well.”
Harrison asked if the town arborist will be the one who determines there is a risk that crosses the threshold.
Sales said the appeal process is still new to staff as council only approved the interim Tree Protection Bylaw in April 2023 and are still working out some of the issues
“As we are relatively new to reviewing this type of report, we did take the extra step of ensuring that our arborist had to look at it, too,” said Sales. “That’s why that additional set of eyes was on it. It won’t necessarily happen every time for every appeal just because of the administrative burden.”
The property owner can have the tree removed after two years. He will be allowed to prune or limb the tree.