THUNDER BAY – McIntyre Ward resident Lorella Costanzo has been dealing with a particular Balsam Fir since 2021.
The nuisance tree grows between her property line and municipal parkland.
In 2021, Costanzo and her neighbours called the city to have several dead evergreens removed that were encroaching on their properties.
The Balsam Fir overhanging Costanzo's garage shed its needles onto her garage roof causing damage to the garage’s shingles and began to grow a patch of moss.
After an investigation, the city removed several dead trees, but the Balsam Fir was deemed healthy; thus, it couldn’t be removed according to the city’s tree by-law.
Cory Halverson, manager of parks and open spaces, said the city had received “five separate customer service calls” from Costanzo. Field staff, supervisors, and himself have assessed the tree. The city’s solution was the removal of the branches that were making contact with the property.
He also advised Costanzo to use chemicals to help protect the garage. The chemicals would be at Costanzo’s expense.
Costanzo, in her deputation letter, stated, “as a taxpayer, I did not see that as an acceptable remedy both since the damage was being caused by a tree on city property and the fact that remediation would not definitively resolve the problem."
Costanzo contacted the city multiple times about the tree, but the city stood firm that a healthy tree could not be removed.
Now she is bringing her complaint to council.
Community members have shared this story time and time again.
Nuisance trees have been brought forth to council. Council members have received many emails and phone calls from constituents about nuisance trees causing damage to their properties.
Halverson said the city’s forestry management group “receive well over 1,000 requests within a year.”
After hearing from Halverson on the city’s tree policy and procedure, Coun. Mark Bentz set a motion of referral back to administration “for some information with regards to their assessment of potential damages to this structure and policy and costing considerations.”
Bentz stated that administration could look at policy changes “if that would help” but what he wanted to capture with his referral were options for council to consider including the financial information for each option.
Coun. Andrew Foulds noted that instead of looking at Costanzo’s nuisance tree, administration could look at a complete policy change about nuisance trees to address the 1,000 phone calls the forestry department gets every year.
“I'm not going to support a referral that looks at one of the trees. We all get phone calls regarding nuisance trees. To be honest, I don't want to spend hours listening to deputations in front of council about people complaining about their trees,” said Foulds.
“I mean, if this is an issue, then we need to look at it from a policy perspective and what it comes down to is, are we going to increase our service standards?”
Coun. Kristen Oliver asked if Bentz’s referral could be amended to include a tree policy review, which was seconded by Coun. Kasey Etreni.
Coun. Brian Hamilton agreed with Foulds that he was less interested in Costanzo’s specific nuisance tree and more interested in the wider issue of nuisance tree complaints across the city.
Hamilton asked if the tree policy review could be voted on separately from Bentz's referral.
Hamilton’s motion passed and the two referrals were split.
Bentz’s referral to look at Costanzo’s specific nuisance tree was ultimately defeated by council in a five to seven vote.
The referral to look at a full policy warranted a further discussion on the effect it would have on the city manager's work plan.
The city manager’s work plan was brought to council on Feb. 10. Its priorities are policy and planned developments, special projects, and key initiatives over the next three years including the in-door turf facility, plans for Pool 6, and transforming transit.
“This is something that quite frankly with all the other things that are lined up on our work plans, this could be a year-long undertaking and perhaps just a little bit longer than that. Otherwise, something else will fall off the priority items that this council has already supported,” said city manager John Collin.
Foulds stated that he was “open to the conversation about a policy review,” but asked Collin to clarify the potential impacts of a policy review on the city manager’s work plan.
Collin said, “for all intent and purpose, the policy is the bylaw.”
City staff would have to look at how the bylaw is defined, identify types of trees that may fall at higher risk for nuisance complaints, evaluate current service levels in dealing with those trees, assess new options to adjust the current service levels, and public engagement.
“We are talking about thousands of trees that would be characterized as nuisance trees within the city of Thunder Bay. So, the body of work is significant, mainly from a time perspective, not necessarily in terms of total hours,” said Collin.
After hearing from administration, Foulds walked back his statement of being in favour of a policy review stating, “I'm not sure I'm ready to devote those kinds of resources at this time.”
Bentz said he would support a policy review because he is in favour of a policy “that meets the needs of the citizens.”
“I've heard of too many instances whereby administration's hands are tied with the options that they can present a homeowner if there are problems with the trees. And that's what forces it to come to council, and certainly, I don't want to have to deal with trees as a councillor,” he said.
Council approved the policy review referral in an eight to four vote.
