Eighty-three percent of the tree canopy cover in the Town of Halton Hills is located on privately-owned land.

Our Arborists, Registered Professional Foresters, and Landscape Architects engaged with town council, town staff, local conservation authorities, and the community for two-years to develop a made-in-Halton Hills strategy to manage the largest component of the tree canopy that provides ecosystem services and well-being to the entire community.

The goals of the Privately-Owned Tree Management Strategy were to:

• Explore legislation that enables the Town to manage trees on privately-owned land and establish a baseline for the Town’s existing tree canopy cover,

• Engage the community to understand community values and ideas to develop a made-in-Halton Hills approach to manage trees on privately-owned land;

• Evaluate the resource and administrative implications associated with preferred privately-owned tree canopy management tools, and

• Develop education, incentive, and regulation management tools to manage the privately-owned tree canopy.

The tree management tools in the strategy have been developed based on values, views, and ideas shared by the community through engagement opportunities and Town Council workshops. Embedding community values, views, and ideas into the development of each tree management tool from the beginning is intended to improve community participation and affirm the value to Town Council and staff when allocating resources as tree management tools are implemented.