Removal of east London woodlot sparks the ire of city councillors

455 Highbury Ave. N., seen on Aug. 15, 2024. (Bryan Bicknell/CTV News London)

A developer has sparked the ire of London city councillors after clear-cutting a woodlot in the city’s east end before getting a green light to expand a storage facility on the property.

“We’re cutting down trees that were perfectly fine and healthy,” said Coun. Skylar Franke at Tuesday’s meeting of city council’s planning committee.

“I’m actually prepared to put the staff recommendation on the floor to refuse this. I don’t personally like the approach that has been taken at this point,” she exclaimed.

Last year, developer Highbury Self Storage was given a green light from the city to repurpose an industrial building at Highbury Avenue and Brydges Street into a self-storage facility.

It now wants to build an additional five buildings to house 65 storage units on the southern portion of the property. It has applied for rezoning to allow for the expansion, but has done so only after cutting down a woodlot on the site. A representative for the developer’s planner, Zelinko Priamo, told the committee it had both approval and good reason to take the trees out, citing vagrancy issues.

“The wooded area has since been removed to address vagrancy issues on the land,” said Taylor Whitney. “The client obtained a landscape consultant and obtained all necessary permits and approvals from the city prior to removing the majority of the trees,” she added.

Apple Self Storage at Highbury Avenue and Brydges Street, seen on Aug. 15, 2024. (Bryan Bicknell/CTV News London)

According to the ward councillor, the rezoning to expand the storage facility on the site was not likely to be approved anyway, as it does not conform to the London Plan. Shawn Lewis said now it’s a matter of having the developer replace the lost trees with a plan the city can live with.

“So they were supposed to plant three times as many trees as were removed. That is because we know that our tree mortality rates, not all the new trees will necessarily survive. But they were saying, ‘Well we don’t want to replant it where they were. We’re just going to plant it outside of the building, you know along Highbury Ave.’ And, when you start looking at the distance between the road and the building, that it’s just not the same compensation as cutting down a woodlot feature,” Lewis explained.

The decision goes to city council Aug. 27.