Laval intends to make major revisions to its silviculture policy next year, David de Cotis told The Suburban.
“We’re looking at the whole tree code,” the vice-chairman of city executive committee disclosed in an interview. “We want the city to take over maintaining the trees that are [adjacent to] residents’ land. Today, residents are responsible for that. Next year, the city wants to take full ownership of that.”
The previous Vaillancourt administration established a much-reviled policy which held homeowners and other real estate owners responsible for maintaining the trees growing on city land adjacent to their property.
“The current mayor, Marc Demers, decided together with our team that it would be best if [the city] were to take back that responsibility,” de Cotis said, explaining that it will be more efficient for the city to undertake see to the pruning needs of city trees. “It was an issue that we learned of when we went door-to-door during the [2013 municipal] election campaign. The mayor said that once we were in power we would address this, so it’s another way of keeping our word. It will be addressed when the next municipal budget is tabled—one of many promises that we will fulfill.”
St. Vincent de Paul Councilor Paolo Galati said that the residents in his district will welcome the tree policy reversal.
“In my territory there are a lot of homes with large, mature trees which can be quite costly to maintain,” he told The Suburban.
