City of Powell River is working on a trees bylaw, which could take into consideration trees deemed significant.
At the February 2 committee of the whole meeting, councillors considered a letter from Townsite Ratepayers Association president Diana Collicutt, asking for a tree inventory on the old golf course lands in Townsite before any future development.
Councillor George Doubt said the letter looked familiar to him so he went back and looked at the January 21 city council meeting and this letter was on the agenda of the meeting. He said he thinks it was received for information at that time.
“I think we’ve already dealt with it,” said Doubt.
Chief administrative officer Russell Brewer said the letter was on the agenda for the council meeting but that it had been referred to the committee of the whole.
Mayor Dave Formosa said he thinks he was the one who referred to it.
“We got that letter asking for an inventory of the trees and we didn’t quite know what to do with it or how to deal with it,” said Formosa. “It seemed a little different so I thought let’s send it here and we can talk about it. Maybe someone can bring us up to date on what happened with the trees. I know when we were building the liquid waste facility, we looked at all the trees and determined what trees had to go and what stayed.”
Brewer said the city has an action item to bring back some updates to the trees bylaw, likely in early 2022. He said one of the opportunities for the tree bylaw may be to add significant trees.
Councillor Cindy Elliott said the city owns the land so any development permits can be specifically addressed to any project. She said if the city is looking at disposing of lands, it might be worthwhile to figure out the tree inventory and how the city would like to see them managed.
Brewer said that work is underway with regard to the trees bylaw.
Collicutt, in her letter, said the society was requesting that prior to undertaking future development of the old golf course lands, the city conduct a tree inventory to list and locate unique (heritage) treespecies, certain wildlife trees and old-growth trees worthy of preservation.
“The golf course wascreated by the Powell River Lumber Company in the early 1900s to attract workers to this area,to provide recreation and to serve as a purpose for mill managers to entertain dignitaries visitingthe area,” stated Collicutt. “A large variety of unique tree species, some of them very rare such as the butternut/walnut referred to in the sewage treatment plant development permit report, were imported fromother parts of the world and planted to enhance the golf course lands.”
Collicutt stated that the Townsite Ratepayers Society is thankful to the city for retaining the two areas of fir trees that included the butternut/walnut tree. She added there is a patch of fir trees further to the north with bald eagle nests, as well as other large old-growth fir trees and a brilliant maple located near the centre, worthy of preservation and are at risk if not inventoried.
“The trees also provide habitat for the varieties of wildlife in the area,” stated Collicutt. “If old-growth trees and rare species are identified for retention, they will enhance any future development of the area.”
