|
Ottawa Forests and Greenspace Advisory
Committee
Presentation to the City of Ottawa Council Committee of the Whole
24 January 2005
2005 Budget Priorities
Thank you for the opportunity to provide input to the Budget. We
would like to thank our Councillors, Diane Holmes and Maria McRae
for their support and encouragement during the past year.
OFGAC is mandated to provide you with advice and recommendations
on
- municipal policies and budgets relating to trees, forests (including
community forests) and greenspace;
- their protection, acquisition conservation and management;
- ways in which the City can meet its greenspace- and forest-related
objectives as outlined in the Official Plan and other planning
documents;
- public and private initiatives to secure and protect greenspace;
and
- promoting public awareness of the role of greenspace and forests
in protecting and enhancing the quality of life in Ottawa.
We acknowledge the calls and need for fiscal restraint. However,
our perspective and what we want you to consider, is that continued
budget reductions affecting our trees, forests and greenspace would
be short-sighted and will have negative consequences in terms of
the future development of the City and the health of its inhabitants.
Trees, forests and greenspace should be viewed as green infrastructure
and afforded the same level of care and attention as we provide
to our hard infrastructure – street lights, sewers, roads and buildings.
Forests and greenspace provide many social, environmental, and
economic benefits that are often taken for granted. Please do not
underestimate the importance of tree maintenance, greenspace planning
and sustainable forest management during the budget deliberations.
Simply put and as I will show in a moment, planting and maintaining
trees is good for business - it pays over both the long and short
term.
During the 20/20 consultations and the deliberations on the Official
Plan, Ottawa's green qualities were mentioned time and again as
highly valued, defining features. Forests and greenspace support
a number of objectives identified in the Official Plan and 20/20.
The information supporting our position is drawn from a multitude
of diverse research projects rooted in science. The benefits that
can be realized demonstrate the value of the City’s past and current
investment in our forests and greenspace infrastructure.
Why are trees and greenspace good for business as well as for the
environment?
- Neighbourhoods with tree-lined streets have higher property
values. Sale prices can be anywhere from 5 to 25% higher than
similar houses without trees.
- Trees improve air quality – removing sulphur dioxide,
nitrous oxides, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and particulate
matter. In turn, they provide us with oxygen. The larger the tree,
the greater the amount of oxygen it provides and the greater its
pollution-reducing capacity.
- In a similar way, they improve air quality by filtering out
pollutants from rain. They also reduce the need for stormwater
management. (City Green estimates show that Washington DC’s
trees save $4.9 billion in stormwater retention services and $49
million in air pollution abatement).
- Trees reduce residential heating and cooling costs.
A properly situated tree of a species appropriate to the site
can save the homeowner money (can be 10-15% of annual energy costs).
Trees also serve as windbreaks not only for homes but for commercial
and farm properties – again decreasing costs.
- Trees shelter us from the harmful ultra-violet rays
that cause skin cancer. We need more trees to protect our school
children as they walk to school and play in the schoolyards. Trees
help avoid future health care costs.
- Trees calm traffic at the same time as they produce
their other benefits on the street. They are certainly a lot more
cost effective and more aesthetically pleasing than a concrete
bulb-out.
Other benefits include noise abatement, glare reduction, visual
blocking or screening of buildings or traffic, provision of recreational
opportunities, provision of wildlife habitat, stress reduction,
and a general increase in a sense of well-being and quality of life.
The magazine – Moving to Ottawa – distributed right here
from this building, uses the words on a recent cover "Gorgeous
and Green" to describe our city. Businesses are increasingly
basing decisions on where to locate on factors that include "quality
of life". But the 2004 Budget put in jeopardy our ability to live
up to our green and gorgeous billing. Now is the time for us to
work together to redress that action.
What are our recommendations to you – what are our priorities?
- Retain the funding for the Tree Planting Program identified
in the budget. ($446K - page 20 of Draft Capital Budget Detailed
Authority; page 682 in Strategic Initiatives Section - Project
901107 Tree Planting).
In the past, Ottawa planted almost two trees for every one that
it cut down. Then with the budget cuts, we slipped backwards -
and in 2003 and 2004, more trees may have been cut down than were
planted on city streets and roads. Staff are recommending reinstatement
of the tree planting program and we support that wholeheartedly.
We need once again to start working towards achieving the Official
Plan canopy cover target of 30%.
- Reinstate the “Authority” for the Community Forest Maintenance
Program. Authority was removed in 2004 particularly for sign
replacement and snow-plowing of the parking lots ($80K in Operating
page 21 in Public Works and Service Section of Operating Budget;
$52K in Capital Budget - Forest Resource Management Initiatives
- No. 903510 page 20 and 680, 735 in Capital Budget).
Reinstating the “Authority” (removed last year) for replacing
damaged signs and performing trail and parking lot maintenance
is one of the main issues. Sufficient funding exists within the
Operating Budget to perform the required work but the Authority
is required to permit staff to undertake this work. People need
to know where the trails are – which direction to go, where should
they not go, which ones are for snowmobiles, which for skiers
etc. and is hunting permitted here and if so when? This is a serious
safety issue.
The Capital funding identified is required to continue the ongoing
work to upgrade the network of fire access roads in the forests,
infrastructure upgrades and planting work which includes marking
and thinning of the trees. The maintenance of community forests
is crucial. By properly maintaining the City’s large tracts of
forest, the discovery and control of invasive insects and other
tree diseases will be accomplished. And dead trees that might
serve as potential fuel for forest fires will be removed. From
a safety perspective, we should not ask users of the Marlborough
Forest to park on the side of the busy road between North Gower
and Smith Falls in the winter. The parking lot needs to be ploughed.
- Fund the next phase of the Urban Natural Areas Environmental
Evaluation Study ($140K page 24 of Operating budget Planning
and Growth Management financial figures given on pages 26-27 not
to this level of detail and page 764 of Capital Works in Progress
). Continue to use the Environmental Resources Areas Acquisition
Fund (Environmental Areas Capital Reserve Fund page 35 in
Capital Budget and page 764 of Capital Works in Progress) for
purchase of environmentally important land in urban and rural
areas.
The next phase of the study will complete assessment of the remaining
73 unevaluated sites, complete the Study Report and develop an
Urban Natural Areas Implementation Strategy as part of the City’s
Greenspace Master Plan (GMP). The implementation strategy for
urban natural areas will be developed as a component of the GMP,
which is scheduled for completion in April 2005. We also encourage
your support for a new acquisition strategy and an appropriate
policy to ensure that the highest-rated sites may be acquired
or adequately secured and protected. This study is a very important
step in preserving the City’s natural assets by quantifying their
relative value.
It is considerably more expensive for the City to create forests
and greenspace than it is to protect existing urban natural areas.
So the Urban Natural Areas Evaluation should be used not only
to define where to protect important areas, it should be factored
in, in economic terms, in planning decisions.
- Retain the Tree Maintenance Program ($4M pages 20 and
22 of Operating Budget)
Given that forests and greenspace are a major urban and rural
resource to owners, citizens and visitors, there should be a concerted
effort to ensure their restoration and protection. It is less
expensive to maintain a tree than to replant one.
With the imminent threat of invasion by exotic pests such as the
Emerald Ash Borer and the Asian Long-horned Beetle, the City cannot
afford to reduce inspection and maintenance in our forests and
of the trees on our streets and roads. If we wait to respond until
we see that a tree is struggling to survive, it is probably too
late to save the tree. Early intervention pays.
- Pass the “Good Forestry Practices in Sensitive Natural Areas”
bylaw and fund the hiring of a Professional Forester to do the
related work ($80K pages 20 and 22 of Operating Budget).
This by-law, will promote sustainable forestry in the City’s most
sensitive environmental areas, as defined in the Official Plan.
It would require that a permit be sought to undertake forestry
in specifically defined urban and rural natural areas. The applicant
would need to show that he or she is following good forestry practices
and that any tree cutting would be done in line with provincial
forestry guidelines following an approved forest management plan.
Stepping aside from forests and greenspace for a moment, our final
recommendation is to
- Restore limited funds for Advisory Committees activities
As part of the 2003 Governance Review, the funds that supported
the activities of the Advisory Committees were removed. The Advisory
Committees Chairs are now asking for a reinstatement of some portion
of that funding in 2005. You will have received a letter signed
by 12 of us outlining the reasons why we are appealing for some
financial help to support our work. Collectively, we volunteer
a considerable amount of time to the City. In 2003, my Committee
was able to demonstrate that we alone gave 3,600 hours. If you
had to purchase that time, the cost would have been somewhat more
than $300,000. Now, multiply that by the number of ACs and you
have an enormous benefit.
The letter outlines the circumstances under which the money would
be spent and the controls that should be placed on it. How much
should that be per committee? A pool based on $3,000 per committee
is my recommendation.
Summary
Trees and greenspace are not frills to be funded only when budgets
are flush.
Trees and greenspace produce hard economic benefits far above their
costs. They also have major amenity and pollution-reduction benefits.
One acre of trees produces enough oxygen each day for 18 people
and the leaves trap and remove particles that cause asthma.
Please think of trees as green infrastructure as essential to a
well-ordered city as sewers, lighting and roads.
The bottom-line is that citizens and the City derive a multitude
of benefits and value from a continued investment in forests and
greenspace and we ask for your support of the priorities identified.
Thank you for your time and continued support.
Iola Price, Chair
Ottawa Forests and Greenspace Advisory Committee
|
