vancouver aiming to grow urban forest canopy — but don't expect the promised 100,000 new trees soon
dan fumano: practical and budgetary considerations mean vancouver seems unlikely to add 100,000 trees soon. but that doesn't mean progress is impossible
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vancouver is trying to add more trees while simultaneously adding more homes and jobs — a tricky balance in an already dense urban environment with limited space.
on wednesday, council unanimously approved an update to the city’s urban forest strategy, which includes a more ambitious target of covering 30 per cent of the city by tree canopy by 2050, up from the previous target of 22 per cent.
but the idea of vancouver adding 100,000 additional trees — a goal included in abc vancouver’s 2022 election campaign and spelled out in motions approved since then by the abc-majority council and park board — does not seem likely to happen any time soon.
that doesn’t mean progress is impossible.
council approved an amendment wednesday directing staff to explore different ways — including a new technology from europe — to add shade and vegetation in parts of the city with less tree coverage, more concrete, and more heat. often, in vancouver as in other cities, it’s lower-income neighbourhoods that are tree-deficient.
city staff explained to council wednesday the challenges and opportunities associated with covering the city with more tree canopy, which provides mental and physical health benefits and improves the efficiency and lifespan of urban infrastructure.
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in recent years, the city has planted an average of 2,000 trees annually, a fraction of the pace that would be needed to add 100,000 more over four years.
and that is before even factoring in that in some years, the city removes more than 2,000 trees, including those damaged by storms or drought, or that die of old age.
the city tries to plant more trees in a given year than it removes, council heard wednesday, but it’s a challenge in the face of natural attrition.
a tree-lined street in vancouver on wednesday
nick procaylo
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last month, a memo from city staff to council explained that the target of adding 100,000 additional trees by 2026 would require “a substantial lift in funding” and represent a “significant increase to current capacities and annual operational funding needs.”
the city was not able to provide an estimate wednesday as to how much more money is needed. but numbers in the staff memo suggest this kind of change could cost millions per year, if not tens or hundreds of millions. the staff memo says the cost of planting new trees ranges widely depending on site conditions and tree type, from less than $100 a tree to as much as $20,000 a tree.
vancouver’s “greenest” city plan, approved in 2011 by the city’s then vision-vancouver-majority government, set a target of planting 150,000 trees by 2020. according to a 2020 city presentation, 139,000 trees were planted by that deadline — an average of almost 13,900 a year, far more than the recent pace.
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vancouver staff said wednesday that the city’s focus will be not on the number of trees planted, or the number added, but on the percentage of the city’s land mass protected by tree canopy.
abc coun. sarah kirby-yung said she understands the shift to focus on canopy percentage over tree numbers. but she asked staff whether the target of 30 per cent could be higher, or it could be achieved sooner than 2050, considering that canopy cover increased from 21 per cent in 2013 to 25 per cent in 2022.
joe mcleod, vancouver’s associate director of urban forestry, responded: “i think the last five per cent of this goal is going to be a lot harder.”
“the cream has been skimmed off the top, so to speak,” mcleod said. “during the ‘greenest city’ decade, from 2010 to 2020, all the easiest, least inexpensive tree-planting spots were capitalized upon. and now we’re getting into the harder-to-reach areas. … it’s going to be trickier.”
also, the city wants to prioritize adding trees to areas where the need is greatest.
during vancouver’s june 2021 heat wave, vulnerable people living in areas with less forest canopy were at higher risk of death from heat-related illness, this week’s staff report says.
the report includes maps that reveal a stark divide between vancouver’s cooler and leafier — and traditionally more affluent — west side, and the historically lower-income east side, which is hotter and has fewer trees — especially in and around the downtown eastside.
tree planting by the city of vancouver along east hastings in one of the areas of vancouver with the smallest tree canopy.
city of vancouver
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a similar pattern plays out across the region. a 2021 analysis by postmedia journalist nathan griffiths found that wealthier neighbourhoods were significantly cooler than their lower-income neighbours who were surrounded by more concrete and roads, and fewer trees.
it can be more difficult — and expensive — to plant trees in these “very urbanized environments,” mcleod told council.
removing pavement and excavating to create a new tree pit can cost as much as $20,000, he said.
“it is a costly endeavour, but it improves the public realm and obviously provides great benefits to the community.”
he cited the 700-block of east hastings as an example where the city has recently been able to add several new trees to a tree-deficient area.
abc coun. mike klassen proposed directing staff to explore innovative ways to reduce urban heat islands in neighbourhoods with less tree canopy cover, including areas where it is challenging to grow trees.
klassen’s proposal, which council supported, mentioned the example of “vegetated shade structures.” these are roughly four-metre-long sail-shaped awnings covered in vegetation, which are designed by a spanish company and have been installed above urban streetscapes in spain, england and turkey.
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asked whether abc’s 100,000-tree campaign promise was unrealistic, klassen said: “i’ll never apologize for being ambitious.”
“i think all innovative solutions have to be brought to bear,” he said. “what’s our goal? our goal is to create cooler conditions in the face of a changing climate, and we’re using whatever tools are at our disposal to achieve that.”
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