Neighbours aren’t happy and West Vancouver bylaw officers are investigating after someone in the district’s Bayridge neighbourhood apparently took matters into their own hands by limbing several tall trees on municipal property.
Martin Skoyko, whose back deck looks out on the limbed trees, said he’s not pleased with the actions of the vigilante arborist, who limbed the middle sections of four 30-metre-tall fir trees sometime in the past 10 days.
Two other tall trees on public land in the neighbourhood have also been observed suddenly leaning precipitously, possibly after being deliberately pulled over.
“I’m not happy with it,” said Stoyko. “It’s gone overboard.”
Skoyko added the limbing of the trees – which took place when neither he nor his wife were home – happened just months after a neighbour above his property on Southridge Drive applied to the municipality to limb those same trees in an identical manner and had that application rejected. According to that application, the pruning was requested to create “vista views” of the ocean.
Skoyko said he was one of the neighbours who opposed the tree limbing and cutting. “We get a lot of water runoff where we are,” he said.
Jeff McDonald, spokesman for the District of West Vancouver, said the district has confirmed there has been damage to trees on municipal property in the neighbourhood. “We’re gathering information now to see if we can determine what happened and who might be responsible,” he said. “Staff will be talking to residents in the area,” he added.
McDonald said once the municipality knows more it will be considering options.
Fines for illegally cutting municipal trees range from $500 to $10,000 per tree.
If an area resident is found to be behind the illegal tree cutting, it wouldn’t be the first time.
“It certainly has happened before that residents have taken it into their own hands to try to improve their views,” said McDonald.
