Trees on expansion lands felled without permit: city

Staff estimate up to a third of woodlot removed from parcel of land on Twenty Road West

The city has ordered the owner of land recently added to Hamilton’s urban boundary and eyed for development to stop cutting down trees after several were felled without a permit.

The chopped trees — the remnant logs stacked on mounds of what appear to be wood chips — once stood on a now-stump-pocked parcel on Twenty Road West in Glanbrook.

Ward councillor Mark Tadeson says residents flagged the cut a couple of weeks ago.

The city has issued the landowner a stop-work order.

“It might be a situation where they’re not recognizing that it’s illegal do to it,” Tadeson said Friday, “but we have to get the message out that they can’t move forward without a permit.”

Municipal law enforcement officers issued the order to the owner of 9751 Twenty Rd. W. on March 16 after finding the trees were felled without a permit.

“As the investigation is ongoing staff do not have the exact number of trees removed or species,” city spokesperson Michelle Shantz wrote in an email. But they estimate “up to one-third of the existing woodlot was removed.”

When developments are expected to affect trees on private property, natural resources planning staff oblige applicants to prepare tree protection plans, Shantz noted. They require one-for-one compensation for any tree with a diameter at breast height that’s 10 centimetres or more.

“This is to ensure that existing tree cover is maintained. The preference is to plant these trees on the site,” Shantz said.

But if that’s not possible, due to space constraints, for instance, cash in lieu of the trees is required.

A consortium of developers called the Upper West Side Landowners Group hopes to build thousands of homes on the Twenty Road West land between Upper James Street, Glancaster Road and Dickenson Road. John Corbett, a planning consultant for the group — which includes Spallacci Homes, Oxford Road Developments, Micor Developments, Parente Group, 20 Road Developments Inc. and Starward Homes — couldn’t be reached for comment Friday.

Tadeson said he couldn’t say for certain why the trees were cut down, but he suggested a development is “a lot easier to do … without trees there once you submit plans.”

“So I guess it’s kind of a situation where you do it now and ask for forgiveness later — but once trees are gone, trees are gone.”

The Upper West Side developers are one of two groups that recently submitted the first requests for formal consultation on proposals for newly created urban areas. Formal consultation is the first step in the development process.

The other pitch is for east of Mount Hope on a rural swath bounded by Upper James, Miles Road, Airport Road and White Church Road.

The lands became legal for development in November after Ontario’s Progressive Conservative government imposed a 2,023-hectare expansion of Hamilton’s urban footprint. The Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing’s decision came over the objection of antisprawl advocates and city council, which had proposed an urban boundary freeze.

In a previous interview, Corbett said rather than sprawl, his clients plan to build mostly townhouses — and less so single-family homes — on land that’s bounded by urban uses close to the airport employment district. “We’re filling in the hole in the doughnut.”

Moreover, the group, he noted, hopes to advance its own secondary plan, a necessary step involving technical studies to map out a range of community needs, including schools, stormwater ponds, roads and parks.

Council, however, recently backed a staff recommendation for the city to lead secondary plans to ensure a comprehensive approach to the expansion areas.

Tadeson, elected to his first term in the fall, said one of his priorities is protecting green space, including woodlands and wetlands.

“I’m for responsible development that follows the proper processes,” he said. “I’m all for continuing to develop inside the (former) urban boundary, but the province has made decisions.”

That’s why it’s important for city staff to lead the drafting of secondary plans, Tadeson said. “So that we know that any development that happens is responsible.”

And there are “good developers that want to work with us,” he added.

The province rejected the city’s proposed frozen-boundary official plan — Hamilton’s overarching land-use blueprint — arguing that expansion into new greenfield areas is needed to accommodate a forecasted growth to 820,000 residents by 2051.

“Municipalities must not only grow out by expanding their settlement boundaries, but they must also grow up and embrace increased density,” a spokesperson for Housing Minister Steve Clark said at the time. “Both must happen to address the housing crisis.”

A suite of related provincial planning changes in the More Homes Built Faster Act was also introduced to fast-track development and meet Ontario’s goal of 1.5 million new homes in the next decade, including 47,000 in Hamilton.

City staff — backed by other planning experts on the overall Ontario targets — have asserted the city can meet those goals by intensifying development within the former urban area.