Last year, after extensive consultations and a $100,000 study, city council passed an amendment to London’s Official Plan that makes it harder for developers to cut down established woodlands.

On Monday, Jan. 14, that amendment will be challenged as the Ontario Municipal Board (OMB) begins up to three weeks of hearings in London. Several local developers seek to overturn the criteria approved by city council in September, 2006, to determine how a woodland is deemed ‘significant’ enough to be protected.

The city has identified about 200 patches of potentially significant woodland within London’s boundaries, most of them in small patches, that total approximately 3,265 hectares. About 100 of those patches are in areas of interest to developers. City Hall planners and local environmentalists worry that – if the September 2006 amendment is over-turned – some 1,600 hectares of woodland could be cut down for new houses and retail strips.

The amendment that the city must defend at the January hearings changed the threshold for designation of significant woodlands from a hard-to-get score of three highs, to the provincial standard of one high, or five mediums. This puts London on the same footing as Ottawa, Halton, the York Region and Middlesex County. Halton recently defended its new One High standard successfully at a similar OMB hearing requested by developers in that region.

The provincial system evaluates woodlands with rankings of High, Medium or Low on several issues, including the size of the wooded area, how long it’s been standing, and how many different species of plants and animals live there. The evaluations are required with any planning application, and they can be done by city staff or trained consultants hired by the city or a developer.

The One High designation is unpopular with some developers. As more areas get protection at that level, it forces them to build in complicated layouts and around the odd natural shapes of standing woodlands.

Under the new criteria of One High or Five Medium, almost 95 per cent of the standing woodlands in London meet the ‘significant’ level, and will be protected. If the OMB heeds the developers’ request for a return to the Three High standard, at least half the current woodlands could be razed.

Bill DeYoung of Reforest London says that replanting initiatives can’t keep up. Over the past three years, some 6,000 volunteers have managed to plant only eight hectares of new trees – an area equivalent to about one and half times the size of Victoria Park. At that rate of 2.7 new hectares a year, it would take almost 600 years to replace the trees that would be vulnerable in a return to the Three High guideline.

Bonnie Bergsma, the city’s ecologist planner, says London is already under-treed.

“The standard recommendation is that cities need a 30 per cent vegetation cover for a healthy natural landscape – fields, forests, woodland, wetland, water courses. We have a little under eight per cent now. So we need to protect what we’ve got.”

Most of the wooded patches under threat are on what appears to be empty rural land – extending about 10 km. beyond the newest subdivisions and big-box shopping perimeters, mostly around the southern half of the city.

City staff and local environmental groups began pushing for toughest woodland protection in 2004, to bring London in line with provincial standards. The move also support other long-range strategies, such as Tourism London’s promotion of the city as a centre of Canada's Carolinian forest, and several city and volunteer initiatives to maintain older trees and plant new seedlings.

Before the amendment, the city sent letters to 328 private landowners who might be affected by changes that made it easier for their woodlands to get a ‘significant’ rating. Only one landowner replied to express concern that the new threshold might pose a liability.

However, at the OMB hearings in January, some 15 development companies have registered to make presentations. The list includes Drewlo Holdings, Norquay Developments, Sifton Properties, Z Group and the London Development Institute.

Dave Schmidt, development manager for Corlon Properties, one of the companies appealing to the OMB, feels the former Three High threshold served the city well.

“When people buy property, they expect to be able to use it in a certain way,” Mr. Schmidt says, “then the rules change. Why was the Three High criteria okay for so long, but not now?”

For every hectare of land protected against development, he adds, that means “we will have to extend sewers, and build farther out. The people living in that new neighbourhood past the protected woodlot will have to drive farther. Is that good for the environment?”

Ms. Bergsma notes that some developers choose to build around protected areas, pointing to the substantial wood that the Hampton Group incorporated into their new subdivision called Egelton Woods, near Aldersbrook and Gainsborough.

She doesn’t think developers are “searching for woodlands to cut down. Some developers have accepted the natural areas. Others do not want a significant woodland, or they want to develop in a portion of the patch that is less significant. The policies allow for this flexibility.”

She finds it ironic that while some developers want the OMB to make it harder for the city to protect woodlands, others put premium prices on new houses that overlook natural areas that the city spent money to protect. Nearby woods become a major feature in the advertisements.

“Housing lots that back onto open space natural areas are sold for several thousand dollars more. If we go back to the Three High criteria – there will be a lot of woodlands that won’t make it.

“The citizens of London have told us they want to be the Forest City. We can’t be that by only protecting the small percentage of areas that make the very tough rating of Three High.”