The Agenda with Steve Paikin (Audio) - Can Ontario Build More Housing Without Losing Its Heritage?

Episode Date: September 23, 2026

As Ontario pushes to build more housing, what deserves protection? Arborist Todd Irvine explains Toronto's efforts to preserve mature trees on private property. Then, Michael McClelland of ERA Architects examines changes to Ontario's heritage laws and what they could mean for historic properties.Donate Today : https://tvo.me/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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There's just one problem. There's a tree in the way. Can you cut it down? Well, it depends. Cutting down a tree is serious business. And in Toronto, and it just got more serious with some updates to the city's bylaw. So get out your tape measure. and if that tree is more than 61 centimeters in diameter, you're looking at a tougher process and

more serious consequences if you decide to, well, take care of it yourself. And if you don't want to cut it down, the city may actually pay you to help protect it. We get into all of that and how these changes are playing out. And this is just one example of the tension between preservation and development. What's another? Heritage Properties. Changes to the province's Heritage Act means some will lose protection as of 2027. Now, the goal is to make it easier to build more housing, but what could we lose in the process? I'm Jay and Jagganathan. Welcome to the rundown. Okay, let's get back to the trees. Toronto recently beefed up its bylaws and introduced new incentives. So what exactly can you do with a tree on your property and how far should a city

be able to go to protect a tree you technically own? Todd Irvin, you're an arborist, and as I understand, influential in the creation of the private tree bylaws in Toronto back in 2004. So it only makes sense that we talk to you about sort of the recent updates to this. Why was it time for an update? Yeah, as you said, the bylaw was first harmonized in 2004, the private tree bylaw. There's actually three bylaws in Toronto. The private tree bylaw was brought into effect in 2004 because there was a need to protect trees in. in the city. And Toronto was at the forefront.

Like, we were one of the first cities to do it. And then it's been replicated all over North America and all over the GTA. But ours has not been updated. There have been small revisions. But they felt like this was the time when they needed to do an update just to meet the fact that it's been around for 22 years. So that's what they did. When we mentioned private, just to clarify, we're talking about trees on people's private properties in their backyards and their front yards. Yes.

All right. Let's have a look at three updates to the bylaw. One of them is stump measurements can be used as evidence in illegal tree removal. New replacement trees are immediately protected and city staff have greater authority to deny permits to remove healthy trees over 61 centimeters in diameter. It seems like that's the number that we're focusing on here. How do these changes make the bylaw stronger? Well, again, the first two especially are just about addressing the fact that people were taking advantage of the bylaws. So it's not for the people that were doing what they were supposed to do, which is, and most people do,

They recognize the importance of it and they follow the rules. But there were people that were cutting down trees, often builders or people that wanted to cut a tree down for reasons that serve their purpose. And they would cut down without a permit. And so the city didn't have a way to enforce that. And then they would go and show up and all they'd have left was the stump. So they're saying, you know, we're going to use that stump

and we're going to measure that. And if that stump is a certain size, 40 centimeters, because the bylaw protects 30 centimeter trees, we're going to say that tree was cut down illegally. And so that's to stop that from happening. So if someone from the city went into the property saw that stump, was there any recourse there? There wasn't previously. So this is what they're doing.

They're trying to fill those. They didn't foresee that when they started the bylaw 22 years ago. And they recognized that was a problem. So they're trying to address that. All right. They say you should never ask a tree its age. But we're going to pull up a graph. This graph shows what a tree's diameter can actually tell us.

Now, we should mention that depending on the species, the math fairies. So we are here focusing on the red oak tree. This is one that is quite common in Ontario's landscapes. If you look in High Park, for example, here in Toronto, there, there, beautiful. As you can see at the top of this graph here, a 60 centimeter, and we're talking diameter, of a red oak can be roughly 100 years old. And if we scale back on that graph, you can see 30 centimeters in diameter. We're looking at about midway, 45, 50 years old here.

If a removal of a tree like this on someone's property is allowed, Do they say the five replacement saplings that people are required to plant equal the value of that? Because this is 100 years of history here, and we're replacing those five saplings. Yeah, and this is one of the revisions, is that, well, there's two things. You mentioned one already, is that trees over 60 centimeters now have a different level of protection under the bylaw. Before all trees were protected the same. And we have to recognize that bylaws don't just stop all trees from being cut down. You have to apply, and you often get a permit.

And often, nine times out of ten, you will be allowed if the tree isn't healthy, if it's structurally unscended. if you're building something. But there are times where those trees are denied a permit because they're healthy or they're very large. So 60 centimeters, though, has been determined as a tree that's of more value for the reasons you just said. It takes 100 years to get that size. And so the bylaws now change to protect those trees

in a greater way. So what that means is if you're going to put an addition on your house before you could, as long as you were allowed to through the zoning. But now the city's saying, well, maybe in some instances, we're going to try to protect them. And maybe you can slightly revise the footprint

of your foundation to protect that. And I used to do that as an arborist. We would find these fun ways to put them on piers and stuff to save those trees. And then another part of that bylaw change is that previously if you say cut down a tree without permission, that's the issue, is that people would cut down a tree without permission.

The only recourse of city head was to charge them, make them plant five trees as compensation. They could find them and we can talk about that, but the main thing was five trees for one tree lost. And that was for a tree that was 30 centimeters they would do that, but for a tree that was 150, the oldest tree potentially in the city had the same recourse and absolutely not five trees does not

replace a hundred-year-old tree the benefits that that tree provides is immense but also it takes 100 years to replace it so now the city's revised that and it's now based on the diameter so if the tree is 150 centimeters for instance there could be as much as 23 trees replacement wow which they can't necessarily fit all those on the property but they can do what's called cash in lieu which is 583 and what that city does will take that money and use that money to plant trees in city parks or or it can benefit the urban forest. Okay, well, you brought up money, so let's talk about some of the penalties there. So we're looking on the low end of a penalty to the high end.

Where are we looking? Well, the one thing is that the understanding is the city, my understanding is that they have kind of three steps. One is education. Maybe you go on the issues with tree protection. It's not just not cutting them down. It's protecting them during construction, which often puts up a fence, which protects the roots of the tree so they don't get disturbed. You cut the roots, the tree can fall over.

So say someone just forgot to put the fence up or they didn't, it fell down. The city might just go and say, listen, put the fence. up, we're good, right? The second one, though, they can go in and say, okay, this is three times we've told you, you know what, we're going to now charge you for the cost of us coming to doing the inspection. They'll put that right on their tax bill, $900. It can be as high as, because they're saying, we're spending the time to come and try to fix this. But they can also say, well, you know what, you cut all the roots of this tree. It's now dangerous. It could fall down. So we want you to, you're now going to have to cut that tree down at your expense, and you're going to have to plant new

trees. So that's another part of it. But then the third thing they can do, in the worst-case scenarios is they can issue a fine, anywhere from 500 up to 100,000. And in worst case scenarios, an extra 100,000, if they were benefiting in some financial way, like they were cutting a tree down so they could build something that they wouldn't have otherwise been able to. But you have to understand that that process, they have to actually, the city can't just issue the fine. They have to then go to court. They have to make a recommendation to the court, and then the justice will then determine what they will set that fine at. And the city won't go straight to the 100,000. they rarely do that.

They will set it based on, okay, this tree was this size. It had this consequence. We warned them three times. They've done this before. So the fines can move from, but the reality is, I looked it up in like, they're averaging in the last, like, between 2021 and 2024, like 30 such fines a year. Okay. Because that's like the last straw.

Got it. So those are the real scofflaws that are breaking the rules all the time. They will go that route because it's a lot of time for the state to go through that. So they try to do it in these other ways. Well, for a lot of people, you know, there was a major storm that hit parts of this province, Toronto especially. We saw many privately owned trees, toppled, crushing cars, blocking traffic. Why do rules around tree removal on private property matter so much in this city? Yeah, well, I mean, the first thing is we don't realize this, but 55% of trees are on private property.

So there's a lot of land that's private. More land is private than public. So we always assume, like, why is this state not doing more for the trees? Well, many of them are not their own. And the way I think of it is it's a shared resource. This tree canopy covers our whole city. It has this incredible benefit to us in times of climate change, primarily because of the heat.

It keeps their cities cool. It keeps our houses cool. It protects our kids from getting skin cancer. It's like this pulling water up from the ground all day and keeping us cool. It's a remarkable thing. So we all have a responsibility. Kind of the way I think about it is if we all have a river that our house backs onto, one neighbor can't pour paint and chemicals into that river because it pollutes it for all.

So the idea is that it's a shared resource. We all should protect it. And so the bylaws goal is to pride that protection. And it should be very clear that it's not saying that you must keep a dangerous tree or a structurally and sound tree. What it's saying is these trees, if they're good health, and they're an incredible, valuable resource. So before you just cut it down without much thought, let's first take a second opinion here and decide whether it really needs to come down. And if so, we'll give you that permit. I am curious.

It may sound like a dumb question, but I feel like asking an arborist is the person I should be asking this. Do trees have a lifespan? Do they just, you know, at 120 is it end of life? Or is it other factors? Yeah, I mean, it's a great question. And it seems silly because it's a living thing. So, of course, it's life. But what's amazing about trees is they're the largest and longest living thing on earth.

Like the oldest trees are in the thousands of years, like thousands. And so they can live a very long time. And the reality is that it's just they, the other trees can live 100 years. trees live 50 years. But the reality is the longer the growing conditions, the better the care, the longer they can live. So like trees, there's trees in front of temples in parts of Asia that are, you know, 1,000, 2,000 years old and they've been cared for. There's other trees that are growing on the sides of a crag of rock that are 4,000 years old. So they can live a very long time. But in an urban setting, it's a little different. So yes, they can be very well cared for and live

a very long time, but they can also be under a lot of negative impacts. Roots being cut to put in a new patio, you know, air pollution, not being properly water because it's really droughty because there's lots of hard surfaces. So in some ways it can be much harder for a tree in the city, but it can also be much better. And the bylaw is just about recognizing the value these trees provide and providing those protections. So we don't lose this resource because often trees are cut down for reasons that aren't necessarily well thought out. Someone just like, oh, there was some leaves falling and it really bothered me so this guy said he can cut it down and it's gone. Well, this thing is potentially 100 years old. Let's just take our time and think about what we're doing here

and maybe this tree could be saved in another way. One concern about this bylaw is whether it has teeth. And it's the enforcement part that we were talking about. How might these new updates challenge the city's capacity to make sure that these rules are being followed? As we talked about, the mass amount of trees that we have, the city is trying to grow that canopy as well, the maintenance of this.

I know lots of people. anecdotally who have, you know, had some trees. They're like, I would love the city to come in and check on its health, met with delays and time. Where does the enforcement come in this? Is there going to be some issues with it? Yeah, I mean, the bylaw hasn't changed so much as far as enforcement presently, because there are these additional protection for the one type of tree.

But there's always been that complaint that sometimes it takes a while for the city to get out there, just like other, any city service. And sometimes this is a fault of the council. and the council of counselors themselves, city council, because they will say, we want these trees protected, we want more protection. My people in my neighborhood are upset.

So they instead say, well, we want more protection, but they also want to keep taxes low, so they say no more money. So it makes it hard for the city sometimes. But there's a recognition there, and there has been many efforts to improve that. The city, in because of a previous audit, of looking at the bylaw,

found that they weren't properly enforcing. So people that were following all the rules, their trees, They were doing all the rules, paying the money. Then right next door someone was doing something wrong. So now the city has an enforcement component. And part of this, and they've been doing that for several years, and part of the bylaw revisions is to, as we discussed,

increase the amount of trees they need to provide us compensation, which is an increased incentive to do better. But there's also looking at further revisions coming in the new year, potentially, where they're going to make public records of people that, or corporations that cut down trees and had decisions against them so that people will know, I'm not going to hire that company, they did something wrong. There's also look at potentially changing the fees, those fines that are potentially possible, up to $100,000, not making necessarily more, but making the ones that they do issue higher,

because one of the things that we hadn't considered is that you look at the size of the tree, the health of the tree, and you determine the cost that tree provides. But what if that person's cutting the tree down that then allows them to point in a parking pad that can make them $100,000 if they sell that house? Well, no fine's going to cover that. So there's those considerations as well. So yes, it's a hard thing to do to send people out and tracking all these trees, and it does take the city some time and it costs some money, but I think it's worth it.

And the city recognizes that, and they are trying these other techniques, such as higher fines, so they don't have to do as much enforcement because people don't cut the trees down in the first place. That's the goal, right? Fair enough. Todd, this was very insightful. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. Thanks so much for having me.

It's great. Okay. Let's move from old trees to old properties and what's in place to protect them. Back in 2022, the More Homes Built Faster Act made some changes to the Ontario Heritage Act, aiming to, well, get more homes built faster. Time is ticking. Municipalities have until January 1st, 2027 to get in line. But not every property will stay on that list.

Michael McClellan, great to have you here on the rundown. You are the principal architect at ERA Architects, a 4th. which focuses on heritage conservation, but you yourself have 30 years of experience not only in planning but also urban design. Help me understand. It feels like you are the person to help break this down. How do municipalities keep track of properties with cultural heritage value? Well, originally the province suggested that they set up inventories and they could sort

of simply flag buildings, which is, I think, for a lot of smaller municipalities, that's the way to do it. Just if you're trying to create a list, if you don't have one, And then you can go about designating those that you really find are important, but you start with a kind of base of the buildings you think might be important. And maybe they're not, but you can list them at that point. That was the idea that was proposed for most municipalities in Ontario. Is there a criteria?

Is there something that has to be a certain amount of years? Is it what it meant to the community? Well, I think different municipalities work at it differently. Smaller municipalities, they may not have a lot of staff to do this sort of thing, so it could be quite, it could be volunteer driven. You know, volunteers could suggest some names. The city of Toronto tries to be pretty rigorous with it, and so they treat it as almost as if it's designated.

They write a report saying this is why we're listing this building. And that's been the system that's been going for less 20 years or so. Give me an example of a couple of varying properties that would be considered heritage value. Well, it's interesting in the city of Toronto, you don't necessarily have to be an old building. So, for example, New City Hall was put on the inventory of heritage buildings when it was like 10 years old. Okay. So there's a recognition that is it significant. And maybe being old is one point of being significant, but being fantastic New City Hall is another point of significance.

So you can have almost anything. But the question of what's listed and what's designated, The city hasn't really designated everything because it costs some money to designate building. And there's work that's involved in doing that. So leaving them listed. And so, for example, the interesting one we've got is the lighthouse that's out on the Toronto Islands. On Hamlins, yeah. It's kind of the oldest building in the city, 1808.

It's listed. It's not designated. Okay. There's a couple things that I want to dig into. The language that we've been using here for our viewers at home who aren't experts on. on urban planning and heritage. Designated property versus listed property. What are we talking about here?

Well, originally the idea with the Ontario Heritage Act was you could designate properties. The city of Toronto found that that was a slightly cumbersome process. And so they started to develop a system called listing. And it simply flag buildings. The province took that over and said, that was actually a really good idea, because it's an initial step.

It's a good planning move to kind of identify what you can, and then you go about designating the ones that you want. The designation means they're covered under the Interior Heritage Act, and that means there are certain demolition controls and things like that. With the listing, not so heavy a control, but it allows if you go in for an alteration or a building permit or a planning approval, the city would flag, oh, it's a listed building, let's talk to heritage about it.

When you say flag, I say this sort of as a joke, it reminds me of emails. You know, I flag an important email. Sometimes I don't get to it. And I'm curious with these properties themselves, when you're flagging or municipalities flagging property, how long are some of these properties sitting in that list? They can be there forever. I think the list started in the 1970s, and there are listed buildings in that list that are still listed today. Because it's really a question of getting around to it.

And I think, you know, if you have to go through designation process, you've written detailed designation descriptions and things like that, it could take a couple weeks to do one. And so with the number of buildings we've got, it's a heck of a lot of work to sort of say, let's get all our listed buildings designated. All right. Well, that's why the province introduced the More Homes Built Faster Act

as a way to build homes more faster. And what that did was it changed. parts of the Ontario Heritage Act. What is the province trying to do and trying to achieve here, and what are the changes that we're going to see with the Ontario Heritage Act? The one about listing is interesting, because I don't know that much benefit is made by it. There is a sense that it was along the lines of what red tape needs to be cut at city halls

so that more buildings could be able quicker. I'm not particularly sure that this is a particular piece of red tape that needed to be cut. because it allowed a great deal of flexibility. Basically, they've said who said, if you have a building that's listed, as of January 1st, 2027, it used to be 25 is the extension. It got extended.

It has to come off the list. It can no longer be just simply, it can't be identified as a listed building if you can't get it designated in time. And the difficulty in designating, And if you say it takes a couple weeks to designate any building, and if you have three to four thousand listed buildings, they're not going to get them all designated.

So they can't completely go off the list. They must stay off the list for five years. So you could bring them back in five years' time, which means all kinds of nefarious things could potentially happen, right? So it's a problem. Is it fair to say, though, that the province is coming in here? There is a number of properties that have been flagged. but nothing has really been done.

And, you know, there is a need to build more homes. Is this a way to kind of bridge that cap here? I think that's the way it's been broached. I just don't know that it actually works that way. I think building homes is a whole other strong objective. It's really important to be building new housing. And there's been a critique that the... way city halls in cross Ontario handle this, they create a lot of red tape.

A lot of that red tape is through the planning process, and there's a whole number of different things that are problematic and take time. But the listing of buildings, I'm not sure it's getting at what they're looking for. Without heritage designation, so if a property is listed, how much freedom does a property owner have to alter a building? Well, if it's designated, it's simply a question of, so to say, why is it designated? What's important about the building? If you can propose many kinds of alterations and additions and changes that don't really affect the reasons for which it was designated,

you simply, I want to add another room, I want to add a back porch, I want to add a front porch, I want to do things. as long as, and so there should be heritage staff, which basically sort of say that's an approvable, that's a reasonable thing to be doing. There's a way to do that. There's even a, you know, if it's a desperate measure, there's even a way to apply under the Heritage Act to demolish. Well, there's all kinds of things that are wrong with this building.

I've just got to do that. And so the rules are pretty open under the act. It's really a question of how each maneuver The municipality deals with it. If you get a real stickler there playing by the rules, definitely, it can be a problem. Very to say a property without any heritage designation outside of permits, it's pretty much free-for-all. Yeah. If you go into the building department and if your building is currently not listed or designated, you get your building permit.

You get a demolition permit. If it's listed, it's flagged so you have to actually, they consult with the heritage staff. And the heritage staff consider to say, hey, that's a really important building. we don't want you to demolish it, we could propose to designate it and stop the demolition. All right, Michael, let's take a look at this graph. In the city of Toronto alone, there are

12,674 registered properties and 3,551 of them are listed, so not protected under the OHA. How many properties do you think can be designated by the January 1st deadline in Toronto, given the resources the city has and the time it takes? Really only a handful. Really only a handful. And I don't know how,

you'd make that selection or that preference. And actually, right now, I think there's maybe one more meeting of council. So it's like, pick your six favorite buildings. Wow, it really is coming to that. It's that bad. And so there's going to be a whole dearth of really interesting buildings that haven't flagged as potentially really significant buildings in the city. and randomly they might be quite important buildings,

they're not going to have any heritage protection whatsoever. Are you worried about that? Yeah, it's quite worried. I'm not sure that the city has a good handle on how to address this. And if they do have a handle on it, the thing is going to be, it's going to be a workaround. It's going to be like we can't do this formally, but we've got to work around.

And that workaround might be something like, they'll take the inventoryed buildings and just put them under the table. And so if someone flashed by, they'll say, oh, it's under the, we're going to designate this building now. That's likely to happen in the city. Something like that's likely to happen in the city of Toronto. There may still be demolitions that are just unavoidable. What happens, I worry for the smaller municipalities, don't have a lot of staff to, to work with these things.

And I think across the province, there's 10 times as many as there are in the city of Toronto listed buildings. Many municipalities just have listed buildings. I think the problem is going to be, there's the threat to demolition, but there's also the threat to lack of clarity. People aren't going to know now.

You've got a house, you bought a house, we used to be listed, but it's not listed anymore. And you sort of say, I can demolish this. I'm going to come in and demolish it. I want to build a sweet little something or other that I like better. You go to the city and they say, well, we've got this secret list that's now, surprise, you're designated.

That leads to a lot of, you need clarity in planning. You need clarity in heritage conservation. You need people to talk about it and understand it. And the biggest fear is with the disappearance of listing, there's going to be a lot of maneuvering around to save buildings, which is quite appropriate thing to do. But it's not going to be particularly an open, clear system. Help me understand a little bit.

Who's footing the bill for all of this reviewing the designations when we're putting these committees together? Yeah. Is it the municipalities? Yeah, it's the municipalities. And so, because it's part of the planning process and who's paying for the planner, all that sort of stuff. It's part of being what a municipality does, right? And I think it's really important for municipalities to conserve their identity and conserve them really important buildings.

And I think Trontonians would go crazy if a number of buildings, and as they do, actually, when buildings get threatened with demolition, they go crazy. and it's important that we do that. It's important that we stand up for the things that we think are valuable in our community. But again, go to smaller municipalities, go to Picton and they don't have the manpower or the staff, the people power, the staff, to address this kind of issue.

And so it's going to be very problematic for across Ontario. If communities do see a property that's listed and they're worried that it's not going to become designated, what can they do? Zip. Because I think they have to go to the city and say, we would like this building to be designated, and the municipality is going to have to say stand in line because they just don't have the ability to handle this. And I think that's where this is a very awkward, I would hope that the, the provincial government would sort of say, we proposed this two years ago, we put it back,

why don't we do it again, why don't we put it back? Do you think that's on the table? I don't think it's on the table right now. But I think, at least I've heard nothing, right? That's likely. But I don't know how municipalities are going to handle this. It's quite possible we are going to get demolitions. I just don't know.

We'll wait and see, right? We'll wait and see. We've been waiting for quite a while because we're getting, what's the municipality going to do? And there's no clear message, even from the city of Toronto, what they're going to do. Michael, we're going to have to leave it there. I appreciate it.

As you said, we will have to wait and see. Thank you so much. Okay, cheers. What do you think should count as a heritage building? And do you think the province is, striking the right balance between protecting older properties and building new ones. Let us know in the comments or send an email to rundown at tv.org. Until then, I'll see you tomorrow.

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