City scrambling to relocate 90 trees on Arbutus Corridor

Dec 19 2017, 10:14 pm

The City of Vancouver is scrambling crews to remove up to 90 trees on the Arbutus Corridor.

CP Rail crews have been dismantling community gardens and structures on the Arbutus Corridor this week to clear space for the reactivation of the old railway. The company plans to use the space to store rail cars.

The Vancouver Park Board is manually digging up smaller trees at a cost of $150 per tree and using machinery to remove the larger trees with a price tag of $300 to $400 per tree. The smaller trees will be donated to TreeKeepers and the large trees will mainly be transplanted to McCleery Golf Course. The total cost of this operation is not currently known.

In a release, the Park Board maintains “the tree transplanting supports the Park Board’s Urban Forest Strategy, a key aim of which is to protect a healthy, mature tree canopy in Vancouver.”

This follows the B.C. Supreme Court’s ruling against the City of Vancouver’s attempts to acquire an injunction to stop CP from demolishing gardens on the Corridor for the purpose of reactivating the railway. Chief Justice Hinkson ruled that CP is within its right to clear its privately-owned lands and that “gardeners, pedestrians, cyclists, and motor vehicle operators who have been using the corridor have no right to such use.”

 

DH Vancouver StaffDH Vancouver Staff

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