Developer David Sangara said the trees he cut down on the lower half of his property along Highway 101 in Sechelt were smaller than 60 centimetres wide and therefore allowed to go, although an arbourist's report to that effect was never submitted to the District.
Director of development services Ray Parfitt said this week that the District of Sechelt will give the developer the benefit of the doubt and continue to work with him on the subdivision.
"We're taking his word for it," Parfitt said, confirming that trees less than 60 cm wide at breast height are allowed to be cut under the District's current tree cutting bylaw for subdivision development.
Dangerous trees and those that are in the way of roads or homes to be built can also be taken down, Sangara noted.
"The stuff at the bottom [near the highway] was cleared for erosion and sedimentation control and that's to put in devices to prevent silt from getting into the ocean. None of the trees that were cleared down there were bylaw trees," Sangara said.
He also took some trees out of the buffer zone between the Sangara and Claytons properties, but said he intends to plant new trees, shrubs and wildflowers in the buffer to make it more appealing and biologically diverse.
He noted the trees left standing were thinned in order to "let sunlight in to dapple the ground" and help new plantings in the area grow.
Sangara has hired landscape architect Judith Reeve to plan the look of the buffer zone. Her plan calls for eight vine maples, 21 white flowering dogwood trees, seven western red cedars, seven Douglas firs and dozens of flowering plants like the red flowering current and oceanspray to be planted in the area.
The work to replant the buffer zone will start in October or November to give the new plants the best chance at survival.
