Budget 2005

OFGAC Presentation to Corporate Services and Economic Development Committee
19 October 2004
Iola Price, Chair

OFGAC was established by Council in 2001 to provide you with advice 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 protect greenspace
• promoting public awareness of the role of greenspace and forests in protecting and enhancing the quality of life.

Some of Ottawa's greatest attributes are its trees and greenspaces. 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.

At this point, we can't get a sense of what level of funding is available for the Budget 2005 and the budget directions documents do not make our job any easier in regard to choices.

You ask us to make choices between essential services. Do we want more water or more paramedics? And, in the case of trees, forests and greenspace, the implication in the budget pullout paper is that city street and rural tree planting and maintenance are included in parks and greenspace. But that is not the case - those budgets are contained in the another part of the Public Works and Services Branch.

And, 15% of the City's budget, the Capital Works Program is not even included in the material we were given to review. We hope that next year, the documentation will be provided in a better fashion.

We are here to plead the case for trees.

Trees provide many benefits

• 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 and 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-reduction 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'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 too - again decreasing costs.

• Trees shelter us from harmful ultra-violet rays. We need more trees to protect our school children as they walk to school and play in the schoolyards.

• 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.

The magazine Moving to Ottawa, distributed right here from this building, uses the words on its current cover "Gorgeous and Green" to describe our city. But the 2004 Budget put in jeopardy our ability to live up to that billing.

The impact of the 2004 budget on trees and forests

1. We saw the tree planting program cut by 50%.

   While the best time to plant a tree was 10 years ago, please provide the next best option and plant more trees in 2005. We will not meet the Official Plan goal of a 30% canopy cover if we don't soon increase the number of trees planted.

   Our recommendation is to reinstate the program to its former level by restoring $350K to the tree-planting budget.

2. There was a serious threat of a 50% cut to the tree maintenance program (it survived only because of a tie vote)

   The International Society of Arboriculturists recommends that trees be maintained every three to five years. The impact of any cut to the tree maintenance budget will mean that our green infrastructure will be pruned every 5-7 years (in fact, that is what the new Quality Maintenance Standard proposes for street trees: inspection every 5 years and pruning (equivalent to a tune-up) every 7 years). You wouldn't maintain your automobile at that level.

   Our sports fields get better treatment than that and they don't provide residential cooling in the summer nor the same level of economic benefits derived from tree cover. This decline in our standard of care can only be reversed by clear direction from you, the Councillors, and the provision of adequate funds to maintain our trees.

   Our recommendation is to ensure the maintenance of the Tree Life Cycle Management of trees budget is retained ($750K). (Life cycle maintenance includes all maintenance activities including inspections, monitoring tree protection during construction, watering, fertilizing , pest control [for DED], trimming, cabling and tree surgery.)

3. The budget for Community Forest maintenance was cut in 2004.

   The 2004 Spring Cleanup in Marlborough Forest did not take place as the staff lacked the flexibility to rent dumpsters ($2000). The Torbolton Forest Cleanup would also have been cancelled had the Councillor's office not found a company willing to donate a dumpster. But the City provides such services to the urban spring cleanup for residents performing what some would say is an essential City function. At the very least, there should be equivalent treatment.

   Community Forests, like city street trees also need maintenance. Signage and trail maintenance are necessary if members of the public - hunters, hikers, horse-riders and snowmobilers in winter - are to use these areas safely. If the city provides the signs, volunteers can be found to post them. Often, as occurs in the Torbolton and Marlborough Forests and probably elsewhere, maintenance costs are significantly reduced due to hundreds of hours of volunteer labour. Make it a true partnership by providing the small amount of funds required to unleash that community energy.

   Included in the maintenance costs are the funds to plow the parking lots of places like Marlborough Forest. Forcing people to park on the side of a busy highway is a public safety hazard. The snowplowing budget was $2K.

   Our recommendation is to restore the Community Forests maintenance budget ($23K) We urge you and the senior staff to start thinking of trees as assets, not liabilities, as now seems to be the case. Our trees are green infrastructure. Protect them well as you do the hard infrastructure.

Advice for the long term

Continue and strengthen the work on long-erm policies such as the Greenspace Master Plan and the Forest Strategy. This will require the appropriate staff and a commitment to follow-on implementation. Such plans will give you the policies and tools you need to use to protect greenspace and forests/trees in Ottawa and sensitive lands such as wetlands, meadows, and green corridors.

We need you to implement a better system of tree protection - a cradle to grave protection for trees - in the development cycle. In most new developments, all trees are routinely removed from sites, sometimes before the development application is submitted to the City.

But Council needs to ensure that the Planning and Growth Management staff are sensitised to the value of trees - that ravines and important trees on developments are protected, not destroyed. Give your planning staff the direction and clout to protect the environment.

Fund the development of the monitoring of tree preservation and protection plans during the pre, construction and post-construction phases of development.

Require the planting of trees on both sides of the street in new developments - not on one side only as I understand is your decision for Phase I of Lebreton Flats. That, as we understand it, is a measure to save future maintenance costs. We think that decision is wrong.

Ask for Advisory Committee advice more often. Consider allocating a small pool of money for all the ACs so we can fund small projects such as workshops. We donate hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of free time to city business. A bit of financial help would go a long way and re-create that sense of partnership we all felt when the Advisory Committees were first established in 2001.

Finally, in regard to the sale of surplus city lands - look first at their potential to create greenspace (park, pocket park, meadow for butterflies and wild flowers etc). Many people in the urban core cannot travel to the outlying areas where new parks are being created in new subdivisions. Turn our paved parking lots into oases with trees and some benches in corners away from the cars.

Council has passed the Official Plan, and by default, approved the ideals of sustainability and retention of greenspaces and natural areas. Moving forward to implement these ideas will also require Council's support especially when there may be costs involved.

This will be money well spent, and we urge you to consider the long-term - support the retention and maintenance of trees, forests and greenspace in Ottawa and the acquisition of new greenspace. Be proactive in protecting our greenspace and natural areas. Once they are gone, they are gone forever.