Stratford council puts tree-preservation above cost for Argyle Street reconstruction

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More than seven months after Stratford council passed a private tree-preservation bylaw to prevent the removal of large trees from private properties, councillors once again demonstrated that protecting the city’s tree canopy remain a priority.

At Monday’s council meeting, councillors narrowly voted 6-5 in favour of a more costly design option for this year’s Argyle Street reconstruction – one that has a better chance of saving a handful of the some of the city’s oldest and largest trees.

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“It may add a little bit more time to the construction. However, the issue is there’s more work involved with trying to protect the trees,” Stratford infrastructure director Ed Dujlovic said of the second design option for the street-reconstruction project budgeted this year at $950,000.

“We still may lose some of the trees, but we’ll have to take extra measures during the design process to try to save as many trees as possible.”

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In a report to council, city staff said they had identified the Argyle Street neighbourhood as having insufficient fire-flow and storm-water capacity, and the street’s asphalt is in very poor condition – all of which does not meet current standards and requires replacement. The street itself is 250 metres long and 6.4 metres wide, and there are a total of 33 trees located within the street’s right-of-way.

For this project, the city will reconstruct Argyle Street to have a seven metre-wide roadway with new curbs and gutters, and a sidewalk on one side. The sanitary and storm sewers, watermain and associated services will also be upgraded within the right-of-way.

Of particular concern to both council members and local tree-preservation advocates, the less expensive design required the removal of six large trees and five smaller trees.

Instead, half of council and Mayor Dan Mathieson voted for a second design costing roughly $150,000 more than what was budgeted. Through council’s chosen design, the city will shift subsurface utilities to the south side of the street to widen the distance between the trees and the planned storm-sewer excavation.

The placement of the new watermain will also shift and a temporary over-land watermain will be required to maintain water service for residents. In addition, the hydro poles along the south side of Argyle Street will have to be supported temporarily as the new watermain is installed.

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“We know there’s significant benefits environmentally from having mature trees, and the time that it would take for planted trees to reach even the carbon sink or carbon storage of the mature trees is quite long,” said Coun. Kathy Vassilakos, adding the mature trees also improve streetscape aesthetics.

But even though council has voted to spend an additional $150,000 to protect the trees, city staff cautioned there’s no guarantee those trees will survive, as any nearby underground construction could have unintended consequences on root systems and overall health.

“There’s always good intentions and then there’s reality,” said Coun. Brad Beatty. “I, for one, would love to see every tree saved and I also believe when we have people who are doing the work that they (should) want to do their best not to hurt trees. But most recently, I can share that on the Redford Crescent reconstruction they did their best to save trees, but at the end of the day there’s realities there where even with best intentions and best efforts you can’t save every tree.”

And while councillors Beatty, Dave Gaffney, Tom Clifford, Martin Ritsma and Graham Bunting voted against spending an additional $150,000 on “a hope and a prayer,” as Beatty called it. Mathieson and the rest of council decided to make the extra effort.

Learning of council’s decision Tuesday, Marianne Van Den Heuvel, a founding member of the recently established Stratford-Perth Tree Trust dedicated to maintaining and preserving the area’s mature trees, said the organization is encouraged by council’s commitment to saving the Argyle Street trees.

“This old neighbourhood borders the historic Cooper site (and council’s decision shows) a majority of councillors value the existence of these trees sufficiently to vote in favour of a design that moves the location of the utility lines, thus reducing the area of root damage to these trees,” Van Den Heuvel said in an email.

“On average, a tree stores about 160 kilograms of carbon by its 25th year. … Congratulations Stratford city council.”

gsimmons@postmedia.com