Continuation Of The Tree Theme

I have been accused of being happy about Aurora trees being cut down.

In this town, we plant thousands of trees every year. Developers plant thousands . South Lake Simcoe Conservation plants thousands.

Garden nurseries are flourishing from sales of trees and shrubs to thousands of new homeowners in Aurora. They've changed the landscape.

Neighborhood Network planted thousands of trees for South Lake Simcoe Conservation this year, But not in Aurora. The Mayor didn't want the competition to her day for collecting litter.

Nobody knows how many trees are standing in the various wood lots the town owns. Sheppard Bush,Jack Woods Bush, Case Woodlot and the McLeod place owned by the Oak Ridges Moraine Trust The town pay the taxes on the property, regional and school boards. We've made an agreement to maintain it but we can't use it for anything, not even a walk, for another three years.

The Region pays for trees to be planted on regional roads. Judging by the dead saplings on Bathurst Street north of Henderson, they don't much care if they are alive or well. New trees have not produced leaves in the three years since they were planted but we haven't seen a media alert on that situation or naming of miscreants in connection with it from our regional representative.

I myself have to constantly dig out tree seedlings from my garden . I figure if I hadn't been doing it over the past forty years, my house would have been upturned and bricks crumbled long ago by the seedlings cast from the maple that shades my deck.

On every side my neighbours have maple trees. I'm pretty sure I know the father.

We gave the arboretum, a citizen group, a hundred thousand dollars this year to plant trees.

No, I am not worried about the municipality being denuded of trees.

Farm fields are not generally covered by trees. There were no trees in this subdivision before homes were built.Nor in the subdivision south of us . Now yard waste being deposited at the curb has piles of debris from pruning and tree cutting. When one turns the corner at the bottom of my street, it's hard to tell where the houses are.

Looking down Yonge Street from Newmarket towards Aurora, it's equally hard to tell it's a town and not a forest.

The memo I received on Friday from the town, states 128 trees have been destroyed. "many of which may have been covered by the tree bylaw" That's hardly definitive.

It says the land may be controlled by Toronto and Region Conservation Authority but a study of the map indicates it 's outside their jurisdiction but" we are sending it to them anyway for confirmation"

It says the owners "may" be subject to fines for offenses even while a media alert has been issued, complete with names of people charged and amount of fines upon "conviction".

The Mayor is pictured in the Toronto Star standing in a field that appears to be freshly plowed, making a statement of how the town is defending Oak Ridges Moraine from property owners who pay taxes to the municipality and have made an application to develop land, which has been legally designated by the town.

My anonymous commenter thinks I must be happy about Aurora trees being cut down.

In the first place. they are not town trees.

In the second,while I am not ecstatic about unseen trees, I save my emotional reactions. I am not opposed to trees being removed in particular circumstances.

In the last term, the town had an application to remove trees from a lot in Hunters' Wood. I went to see it. The house was built by the late Jim Jongeneel, who had a part in processing the development. Trees around it were so dense not a glimmer of light could be seen.

The property had been purchased at a cost of millions. The new owner planned to demolish the house and build a new one at construction cost of several millions. His architect had advised which trees needed to be removed to create a site for the larger home and re-locate the septic tank.

He paid a fee for each tree in the application. Staff did their homework and recommended
approval to Council.

I had to pay almost a thousand dollars last year to have a tree that I planted, removed. I planted it too close to a companion tree. It only lived for forty years. I enjoyed its shade. I have missed it this year. I would certainly not have appreciated having to pay the town a fee for permission to remove it. on top of what I had to pay to actually remove it.And the maybe be reused the permission.

I think that's insane.

Former Councillor Kean opposed the application for the Hunters Wood property. He said, "there's no point in having a bylaw if it's not going to be enforced" The candidate for Mayor claims credit for the tree bylaw.

I supported the staff recommendation. Aurora is a business corporation. Our business is service. Our revenue comes from property assessment . Two and a half million dollar of construction value home represents substantially more in market value assessment.

I'm not of a mind to turn that away several million dollars worth of revenue to the town.

A business that turns away business is not a business.

It may be a charitable trust foundation . Or a philanthropic organization. It may be a rural municipality sufficiently distant from the megalopolis to be frozen in perpetuity. . Whatever......it is. it is certainly not an urban municipality as described in the Municipal Act. Which we are.

I'm not sure how many vacant building lots of record are in Aurora apart from plans of subdivision.

I don't know how many are treed lots.

But any time an application is made to the Town to remove trees, to make way for a house, which will bring in revenue, to share over-all costs of providing for municipal and regional services, and boards of education costs, of providing schools and now, courtesy of the region, the cost of hospitals, I am going to vote in support of that application.

It's the business we are in. It's the reason for our being.

We are an urban municipality. Our boundaries into rural townships were expanded in 1971 to allow for urban growth to happen without requiring legal costs for expropriation from our neighbors. Official plans and service construction have been designed to that end.

When we have grown out to our boundaries, they will be expanded again by the level of government with authority to do that.

We are little brothers in the grand scheme for accommodating new population coming to Ontario.

As long as hard services are available to support growth, there are no legal grounds to prohibit it. However fondly we might wish that to be the case. However much hard-earned tax dollars are pissed away on legal fees in a futile attempt to battle our own official plan for the purpose of
scamming voters in general and accommodating neighbors opposed to the development in particular.

I understanding the idea of a golf course and cluster of 75 town houses worth a million apiece on Westhill Development lands, came from Bob Rae ,one-time Premier of Ontario in the nineteen- nineties. He suggested it , as an alternative to the residential designation of the Official Plan as more in keeping with preservation of the Oak Ridges Moraine.

Westhill, it seems, has done nothing but accommodate the ideas of the governing party of the day
including Mayor Morris who had lunch with the principal. a week before the public planning
presentation in Marh 2008 and assured him of her support.

That was before the neighbors expressed their opposition.

But that's another story.