Enabling Legislation, Municipal By-laws and Regulations

Urban areas, though they make up about 1% of the land base in Canada, are home to over 80% of the population and taxpayers. Urban areas and their populations serve various national and provincial interests, yet there is no national urban forest legislation, and existing local-level policies are decentralized. As a result, urban forest policy in Canada is fragmented among municipalities and exists without significant involvement from upper levels of government (Kenney 2003; Barker and Kenney 2012). Thus, most urban forest policies are not determined by provincial or national governments, but by municipalities (Hudson, 2014). With decentralized governance across three levels of government, urban forest protection and management decisions are largely made at the municipal level. 

Urban forest policies and management are complicated due to the variety of land ownership in urban areas, the shifts in rights and responsibilities, and the intersection of land use policies and planning regulations. In response to public pressure, some municipalities take a proactive approach to protecting trees and urban forests, while others adopt a more reactive stance, prioritizing development over environmental preservation. Urban tree legislation and bylaws can vary greatly between municipalities and across geographic areas; these differing bylaws and levels of management have been captured in a 2018 project that measures the footprint of urban forestry in Canada (Puric-Mladenovic & Bardekjian, 2023a, b). This tool serves as a resource for small and large municipalities looking to start new or develop upon existing urban forestry programs.

Municipal urban forestry programs have a wide variety of management areas and responsibilities, such as managing street trees, removing hazardous trees, and planting trees in new subdivisions. There are various policies relating to trees and urban forests, all of which are adopted by municipalities as tools to aid in protecting trees and regulating the injury of trees. There are nine major areas of municipal policy related to trees and urban forests in Canada: (1) policy related to tree permit (e.g., tree removal permit, tree harvesting permit, and certificate of authorization), (2) policy related to standards of trees in new subdivisions (e.g., development specifications, landscape screening, shoreline buffer), (3) policy related to tree planting guidelines, (4) policy related to the choice of tree species (e.g., the list of recommended/prohibited tree species), (5) policy related to boulevard trees, (6) policy related to commemorative trees, (7) policy related to protection of heritage trees and natural heritage, (8) policy related to planting of native trees, and (9) policy related to planting of shade trees (Puric-Mladenovic & Bardekjian, 2023a).

Municipal Bylaws

Tree bylaws are created by municipalities and implemented within municipal boundaries. Tree bylaws support safe, sustainable, and legal tree-related activities in Canada and are often written in accordance with private property laws and city-curated forest management and land use plans. For example, tree bylaws state prohibited activities, exemptions, permit requirements, and rule enforcement through necessary processes, fixed fines and penalties (City of Guelph, 2010). Tree bylaws, depending on their implications, are under different provincial acts. Oftentimes, municipal plans also include provisions for public engagement in tree-related policy (CEN, n.d.). In British Columbia, the Community Charter acts as an “umbrella regulation,” and in Ontario, the Municipal Act of 2001 empowers municipalities to enact tree bylaws. In Newfoundland, the New Urban and Rural Planning Act is the enabling legislation that establishes the province’s land use planning system; it allows the preparation of a range of planning, grant approval, and implementation documents, and provides public input and appeal processes whereby development decisions can be subjected to independent review (De Santis, 2020). This Act serves as an umbrella regulation to manage urban and rural planning (Puric-Mladenovic & Bardekjian, 2023).

The study by Puric-Mladenovic and Bardekjian (2023b) shows that there is a wide range of bylaws pertaining to trees in Canadian municipalities. Over one-fifth (22.8%) of the surveyed municipalities in 2018 had enacted private tree bylaws in response to the municipal need to regulate the injury and removal of trees. Of the surveyed municipalities, 18.3% have public/street tree bylaws. As expected, most of the 146 Canadian municipalities that have enacted public tree bylaws are in the more urbanized provinces, such as Ontario (26%), followed by British Columbia (24%) and Quebec (17%). Of the 182 municipalities that have private tree bylaws, the majority are in Quebec (57.7%), followed by British Columbia (22%) and Ontario (13.7%). 

A recent study revealed that in Ontario, more populous municipalities tend to have more tree by-laws, suggesting the influence of various factors such as more available funding, stronger political will, higher capacity for compliance and enforcement, and increased public pressure (Yung, 2018). Additionally, the study highlighted significant variation in the types of tree bylaws and policies across municipalities in Ontario. This variability reflects a reactive and fragmented approach to tree protection, with each municipality adopting its own unique strategies and regulations.

Public tree bylaws control activities on public property and city operations, such as hydro utility practices, landscaping activities, pest management, construction, and residential, industrial, and commercial development planning (City of Edmonton, 2019). Private tree bylaws regulate tree-related activities on private property, such as tree-cutting, tree removal, tree topping (removal of large portions of a tree’s crown), and building practices (Conway et al., 2022). Some municipalities such as Prince George’s County in Maryland, USA, have tree canopy replacement bylaws, where several trees must be planted to supplement the removal of large amounts of canopy or large old trees (Dalke & Hawkins-Nixon, 2012), These “no net loss” or “net gain” bylaws help preserve and even increase urban canopy cover while still allowing regular tree maintenance and removal when necessary.

Municipalities are also increasingly acknowledging the value of woodlands, biodiversity, wildlife habitats, and ecosystem services through their tree bylaws. For instance, the City of Peterborough’s Tree Conservation Bylaw (By-Law Number 17-120) explicitly recognizes the environmental, aesthetic, and public health benefits of trees. The bylaw also regulates the destruction and injury of trees on private property. Similarly, the Town of Orangeville’s Urban Forestry Policy highlights the environmental, economic, and health benefits provided by urban trees (Yung, 2018).

In Quebec, many municipalities have adopted bylaws requiring permits and certificates for tree-related maintenance, which have explicit provisions regarding the “obligation of obtaining a certificate of authorization to fell a tree”. In Ontario, 23.2% of municipalities (103 out of 444) had specific tree policies in 2018. These policies cover a wide range of disciplines and municipal departments, such as Guidelines for Trees and Landscaping, Specifications for the Planting of Municipal Trees and Shrubs, and Tree Preservation and Clearing Guidelines for New Developments (Puric-Mladenovic & Bardekjian, 2023b). However, 74.5% of Ontario municipalities (331 out of 444) did not have tree bylaws in 2018.

In 2018, in Quebec, 44.2% of municipalities (106 out of 240) had tree bylaws (either private or public). The tree bylaw has been enacted as part of a zoning bylaw, which regulates tree cutting and plantation in both urban (e.g., residential areas) and industrial settings. Such bylaws set out the regulations and guidelines for tree felling or planting, which require owners to apply for a tree permit or certificate of authorization. In Quebec, a bylaw to stop the spread of Emerald Ash Borer has been passed in recent years, and about 8% of municipalities (19 out of 240) in Quebec had such bylaws in 2018. 

In Saskatchewan, about 26% of municipalities (6 out of 23) have adopted the Urban Forestry Bylaw or Urban Tree Policy Rules and Regulations Bylaw. There are provincial regulations regarding urban trees (e.g., Dutch Elm Disease Regulations in Saskatchewan), which result in more standardized urban forestry programs (such as Dutch Elm Management Programs across the province). All of these bylaws and regulations are essential to the maintenance and management of urban trees and forests in Canada.