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One tulip tree = Six floors of condos

April 18th, 2010 · 6 Comments

As Joyce Kilmer didn’t put it, I think that I shall never see, A condo lovely as a tree.

And that’s how city staff seem to feel too, as you’ll see if you carefully read this report where they decline to provide a would-be developer with six additional floors of density in order to preserve a “heritage” tulip tree in the West End.

But note that they would have been willing to give the six extra floors in exchange for the tree except for one glitch — the owner of the neighbouring property, where half the tree’s root bulb exists, declined to provide a guarantee to protect the tree. So staff, feeling that there were no guarantees that the tree would stay and the community could end up with a taller tower in exchange for nothing, declined to go for this deal.

An eye-opener for me. I had no idea the city traded density for trees. This ought to get people in the West End, currently in an uproar about trading density for permanent market rental apartments, into even more of a tizzy.

Or maybe not. Maybe they’ll see that as a good deal, in a way that density-for-rentals isn’t, and totally wrong. After all, blogs are made by fools like me.

Categories: Uncategorized

  • RossK

    Now that is one heckuva peek-a-boo lede!

    Me, I can only imagine what it would have been if it was something that, say, Harvey Pekar didn’t say…

    .

  • kermit

    So the city denies density based on saving a tree. Then people have fewer places to live in dense, urban areas. So people move out to the sprawing burbs where 100x more trees are cut down to supply housing Vancouver can’t because they want to save a tree.

    Makes sense to me.

  • Joe Just Joe

    Heck why not. Every year hundreds of birds are abandoned by their parents. Perhaps we could encourage the developer to build bird houses for these birds. They could hang dozens of them on this tree. In exchange for each bird house we could provide 10,000sqft of bonus density. I’m just kidding, but I could almost see it happen.

  • Lewis N. Villegas

    We are planning neighbourhoods one development at a time, which is a recipe for disaster.

  • MB

    There is such a thing as an urban forest. It would include mature trees on both public and private land. This one deserves a solid think-through.

    Should this tree be cut down despite its apparent large size and good health and non-monetary value to the local neighbourhood, then an appropriate contribution should be made by the owner to planting select nursery grown large caliper tree species in nearby parks and boulevards at a ratio equivalent to its assessed value (5:1, maybe 10:1). The assessment would be conducted by a professional arbourist.

  • tille Campbell

    What I’d like to know -is there a PR firm behind this story? Because the narrative – the beloved tree and little old dead lady – perpetrated by the media is one note of maudlin kitsch. While residents trying to object to this development- are caught in a Kafka cum happy face cloud as city officials do soft blocks of their effort to get input into this proposal as it makes it’s way through the system. The tree is lovely – but it has a finite life. The main issue here is not the tree – it’s the xoning bylaws and the efforts of this developer hadn in glove with employees of the City Planning Department, to get around them to build a very high end very high rise condo building blocking neighbouring more modest buildings from sun and sea.
    This comensation proposal you are makin g- makes no sense and is another red herring – confusing the issue of whether they by-laws are to be waived or not.. The tree is 100 years old. Presumably it is nearing the end of its life span. The owner of the property can do what he likes with the tree. The point is – he ought not to be allowed to exceed the denisity, proximity and height restrictions by dealing the tree card.
    T Campbell