Victoria City Council Decisions
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How strict should Victoria’s rules be for removing protected trees?
Estimated time: 5 minutes (5 questions)
Victoria’s urban forest is an important part of the city’s character. A fuller tree canopy also helps cool neighbourhoods during heat waves, manage rainwater, and clean the air.
Victoria’s tree canopy targets are set out in the City’s Official Community Plan (OCP), adopted by Council in October 2025. The OCP sets a city-wide target of 40% by 2050. Whether the target is reached depends in large part on how trees are managed when land is developed.
Trees on private development lots are governed by the City’s Tree Protection Bylaw. Trees over a certain size, which are typically more mature, are designated as protected by the bylaw; certain native species are protected, but with lower size thresholds.
Under the bylaw, a healthy protected tree can be removed once the City agrees the removal is necessary in order to build. Even if a tree stands outside the building’s footprint, the City’s staff manual still allows its removal on several grounds. One of those grounds is cost: if keeping the tree would raise construction costs by more than 10%, removal can be approved. The cost estimate is supplied by the builder, architect or engineer.
When a protected tree is removed, the builder must meet the applicable tree-replacement minimum by replanting trees on the same lot. For each replacement tree required under that minimum that cannot be accommodated and replanted on-site due to spacing or soil-volume limitations, the City requires a payment of $2,000. The payments go into the Tree Reserve Fund, which the City uses to plant trees on public land.
City records show that between January 1, 2021 and March 21, 2024, the Tree Reserve Fund collected $1,052,248 and earned $91,829 in interest. Recorded spending from the Fund over the same period was $64,530. The Fund’s balance, as of March 21, 2024, was $1,810,704.
This increase in the Fund’s balance shows that money has accumulated at a rate much greater than it has been spent.
The payment of $2,000 per protected tree has not changed since the bylaw was adopted in 2021. In April 2025, a proposal to raise it to $5,000 per tree was put before Council; however, it was set aside for future consideration and has not been addressed since.
Primary sources: City of Victoria Tree Reserve Fund records, January 1, 2021 to March 21, 2024 (obtained via FOI VIC-2024-044) • Tree Protection Bylaw No. 21-035 and its Implementation Manual (obtained via FOI VIC-2023-028) • Official meeting record and meeting video, April 3, 2025, Committee of the Whole • Official Community Plan (Victoria 2050), Section 4.3, Urban Forest
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