Arbutus tree 'such a landmark', Langford petitioner says

This story was originally published in The Westshore newsletter, April 12, 2022. 

The Dunford Towers proposal has already passed its third reading at Langford Council, but a number of Langford residents are concerned the proposal will cost a large arbutus tree growing on the corner of Dunford Avenue and Jacklin Road.

The double-tower development proposal includes a three-level parking garage with a roof styled as an amenity space, commercial and retail space on the ground floor, and what could be more than 20 storeys of residential units.

Langford resident Kristen Awram started a petition—which already has over 1,100 signatures—the day after the public hearing on April 4 to try to convince Langford city council and Jagpal Development to save the old arbutus. "It’s such a landmark," she said. "Preserving it would be such a wonderful gesture to Langford residents who are feeling the grief of loss of trees all around us, and to feel like our voices matter."

Rachael Sansom, a development consultant working with Jagpal Development, told The Westshore on Monday that Langford has now specifically asked Jagpal to try to keep the tree. Jagpal confirmed it will try to incorporate the arbutus into its landscaping plan, but can’t confirm yet if it's possible.

This particular tree, large for an arbutus, is approximately 20 metres tall and has a crown that's estimated to be 17 metres across. Uniquely, it seems to be two trees that both split into two trunks, so if you look closely there are four main trunks. A qualified environmental professional who looked at the tree from the sidewalk and satellite images estimates it’s between 80 and 100 years old. Typical arbutus root areas extend two to three times the width of the tree’s crown, but only about half of that needs to be preserved during construction in order for the tree to stay healthy. If Jagpal does try to preserve the tree, it will be important to have an arborist there during construction to manage the roots as best as possible.

It might surprise some to learn that there is no legal protection for arbutus trees in BC, even though it’s a red-listed species on the Species at Risk list. Protection often falls to municipalities. The rest of the Westshore communities have a tree protection bylaw—except for Sooke, which still has their tree bylaw in draft form. But in Langford trees are discussed on a case by case basis for developers, and not at all for private landowners.

Earlier this year Coun. Lillian Szpak suggested that Langford start drafting a tree protection plan. Her proposal was emphatically shot down by Mayor Stew Young and most of council. He argued that Langford simply didn’t need a tree protection plan. He repeated in that January meeting that the development permit process works fine as it is, and that a bylaw would only add more red tape.

But many Langford residents have still been calling for a tree protection bylaw, saying they don’t trust the development permit process to protect trees.

"There’s just so much public outcry for tree protection and greenspace protection, because we’re looking around Langford watching trees literally disappear before our eyes," she said.

"This could be a great example of showing how the development permit process doesn’t protect trees at all."

There are other trees among the five properties that will make up Dunford Towers, but Awram figured the arbutus has the best chance of protection since it’s close to the existing sidewalk and road, and is within a landscaped area in the proposal.

The Highlands bylaw says no disturbance is allowed within a protected tree’s "drip line", that is, the widest part of the crown. View Royal talks about a protected root area, which it defines as the diameter of the tree trunk multiplied by 18—a 30-centimetre-wide tree would have a root protection radius of 5.4 metres—or greater if determined by an arborist.

Edit: April 14, 2022

Is Arbutus red or yellow? Risk classification, not bark colour. 

Our last edition included an article about a large arbutus tree on Jacklin and Dunford in Langford. It included a claim that arbutus trees are a red-listed species in BC’s species at risk list, but that needs some clarification. 

The arbutus tree on its own is a yellow-listed species—”apparently secure and not at risk of extinction”—but the three “ecological communities” arbutus trees are part of are red-listed—endangered, extirpated, or threatened. Ecological community is a term used by the BC Conservation Data Centre (CDC) to incorporate the interaction of geography and various species.

Arbutus trees are part of three ecological communities, according to the CDC data set, and all are red listed. They are arbutus and the hairy manzanita—a shrub with bark somewhat like an arbutus—arbutus and Douglas fir trees, and arbutus and Garry oaks.