Victoria’s trees are not simply decorative. They are part of the city’s infrastructure. They provide shade, reduce summer heat, absorb stormwater, improve air quality, support biodiversity and make neighbourhoods more attractive and livable.
Victoria has approximately 150,000 trees, with roughly 75% of the urban forest located on private property. The City currently reports citywide canopy coverage of about 30%.
The new Official Community Plan sets an ambitious direction for the future, including a 40% citywide canopy target by 2050, with different targets reflecting the realities of residential, downtown, commercial and industrial areas.
I support protecting and expanding Victoria’s urban forest while continuing to build the housing our city needs.
My Position
I support growing Victoria while protecting and expanding our urban forest.
That means protecting valuable mature trees where reasonably possible, requiring effective replacement when removal is necessary, planting substantially more trees where canopy is lowest, designing streets and developments so trees can reach maturity, and measuring the results publicly.
It also means recognizing that housing, infrastructure and trees must be planned together rather than treated as competing priorities.
Victoria can become a denser city and a greener city.
Build the housing we need. Protect the trees that matter. Plant for the future. Grow Victoria’s canopy and publicly measure whether we are succeeding.
We Can Build Housing and Protect Trees
This should not become a choice between housing and trees.
Victoria needs significantly more housing, including apartments, rental housing and middle-sized housing. At the same time, development should be designed intelligently to retain valuable mature trees wherever reasonably possible and replace canopy that cannot be retained.
The City’s existing Tree Protection Bylaw already recognizes these principles by protecting qualifying trees, requiring replacement where removal is necessary and requiring adequate tree canopy on development sites.
My approach would be to make the system clearer, faster and more results focused.
Developers should know tree requirements early in the approval process, not discover them late, after substantial design work has already occurred. Early arborist assessment and coordinated planning can help preserve important trees while reducing unnecessary delays and redesign.
Protect Mature Trees Where Practical
A newly planted tree cannot immediately replace the environmental and neighbourhood benefits of a mature tree.
For major developments, I support requiring early identification of significant mature trees and examining reasonable alternatives for retaining them before approving removal.
That does not mean every tree can or should be preserved. Trees sometimes need to be removed because of disease, safety, infrastructure requirements or because retaining them would make reasonable development impossible.
The objective should be practical preservation, not absolute preservation.
Where significant trees must be removed, replacement should aim over time to restore or increase the ecological and canopy value that was lost.
Protect Trees on Both Public and Private Land
Because approximately three-quarters of Victoria’s urban forest is located on private property, the City cannot achieve its canopy objectives by planting street and park trees alone.
Private property trees therefore matter enormously.
The City should maintain reasonable protections for significant trees while making the rules predictable and understandable for homeowners.
Residents should not face unnecessary complexity when dealing with diseased, dangerous or inappropriate trees. At the same time, development should not result in avoidable loss of mature canopy simply because removing trees is easier than designing around them.
We need a balanced system that protects the public value of the urban forest while recognizing legitimate property and development needs.
Put Trees Where Victoria Needs Them Most
Tree canopy is not distributed equally throughout Victoria. As the city grows, tree planting should increasingly be directed toward neighbourhoods and streets with lower canopy, greater heat exposure and fewer green spaces.
Victoria’s 2050 Official Community Plan recognizes these differences. It identifies a 50% canopy target for residential infill areas, 25% for priority growth areas, 15% for districts, community nodes and the Downtown Core, and 10% for industrial areas, alongside the overall 40% citywide objective.
That is a sensible principle: establish realistic targets for different parts of the city rather than imposing exactly the same requirement everywhere.
Treat Trees as Infrastructure
When Victoria rebuilds a street, sidewalk or public space, trees and green infrastructure should be considered from the beginning.
- Adequate soil volume and root space
- Trees appropriate for their location
- Species diversity and resilience to climate change
- Shade along sidewalks and public spaces
- Stormwater management
- Coordination with underground utilities, bike infrastructure, parking and transit
- Sufficient maintenance and watering after planting
Planting a tree is only the beginning. The objective should be to grow healthy trees to maturity.
Plant for Victoria’s Future Climate
Victoria’s future urban forest must also be resilient. Climate change, drought, heat, pests and disease mean that relying too heavily on a small number of species creates unnecessary risk.
The City should continue working with professional arborists to diversify tree species and select appropriate trees for future conditions. Victoria’s current urban forest program already identifies species and age diversity, climate adaptation and lifecycle management as priorities.
Native species, including Garry oak where appropriate, should remain an important part of that strategy while recognizing that a resilient urban forest may also require carefully selected climate-adapted species.
Measure the Results
As with other major City priorities, we should publicly measure whether our urban forest policies are working.
I would include urban forest measures in a City public performance scorecard:
- Citywide tree canopy percentage
- Canopy by neighbourhood
- Number of trees planted annually
- Number of protected trees removed
- Number and survival rate of replacement trees
- Mature trees retained through development
- Progress toward the 2050 canopy targets
- Planting in low-canopy and high-heat neighbourhoods
- Annual investment in planting and tree maintenance
The City already uses LiDAR technology to measure canopy changes over time. We should turn that information into a simple public measure of whether Victoria is gaining or losing urban forest.
Sources
- City of Victoria – Trees and Urban Forest.
- City of Victoria – Official Community Plan Bylaw, 2025.
- City of Victoria – Tree Protection Bylaw No. 21-035.