Urban Forest Management Plan

The District is developing an Urban Forest Management Plan to protect, enhance, and maintain the health of West Vancouver's urban forest over the next 15 years.

View the draft Urban Forest Management Plan (PDF)

View larger mapWest Vancouver’s urban forest includes all trees, vegetation, and soil found within parks, along streets, in surrounding forests, and on private property. The urban forest is an asset that provides many important benefits for the health and livability of our community, but it continues to be impacted by climate change and development activities.

Why we need an Urban Forest Management Plan

The Urban Forest Management Plan ties together years of studies, reports, and community feedback into a cohesive plan with specific goals and strategies to support the District’s guiding policies related to urban forest management in order to maintain the health and maximize the benefits of our urban forest over the long term.

The draft plan includes five goals with a total of 58 associated strategies that aim to address the following challenges:

  • Competing uses - Urban forest goals must be balanced with other objectives in West Vancouver. Protecting and growing tree canopy will continue to require careful planning and trade-offs (development on private property and transportation routes and infrastructure on public lands).
  • Inequitable distribution - There is a 49% gap between West Vancouver’s neighbourhood with the highest canopy cover, Sunset Beach (68%), and its lowest canopy cover neighbourhood, in Ambleside 1 (19%). Growing canopy cover in those neighbourhoods will be important to distribute urban forest benefits more equitably.
  • Views - Views and trees both provide benefits to many property owners and visitors that sometimes can overlap and be perceived as detrimental to one another.
  • Climate change - Climate change has already started impacting ecosystems and communities worldwide. The urban forest is a critical natural asset to help the District in its climate change mitigation (e.g., carbon storage, rainwater management, air quality) and adaptation (e.g., shading and cooling) initiatives because of its many environmental benefits. Trees also pose a risk to the community due to impacts on the urban forest from wildfires, storm and wind events, drought, and pests, which can result in hazardous and dead trees that need to be managed.
  • Increased demand for municipal urban forest management - In recent years, the municipality has processed a growing number of tree permits and work orders for tree issues on public land.
  • Lack of data on assets in highest-use areas - Acquiring an inventory of its urban tree assets’ number, diversity, and condition would help West Vancouver plan for, budget, and maintain its urban trees more proactively over the coming years.
  • Infrastructure conflicts - Trees pose significant issues in terms of the maintenance of District infrastructure (road, culvert, watercourse blockages, tree root damage to pipes, buildings, pavements, power lines), which impact service levels, require immediate response during storm events, and pose challenges for planting trees.

View the Draft Urban Forest Management Plan (PDF) for more details.


Thank you for your feedback

The draft Urban Forest Management Plan was developed based on community feedback received during the first phase of engagement in 2022.

The survey closed on Monday, May 29 at 4 p.m.

We thank everyone that took the time to complete the survey.

Staff will further refine the draft plan based on feedback received before it proceeds to Council consideration.


Virtual information meeting

A virtual information meeting took place on Tuesday, May 16 at 12 p.m. Thank you to everyone that attended.


How did we get here?

Community engagement (PDF) held in 2022 helped develop the draft Urban Forest Management Plan.

The 2022 State of the Urban Forest Report and LiDAR Tree Canopy Study (PDF) provide a broad overview of the urban forest, the challenges with respect to climate change, and a summary of the District’s current operations for tree management.

The Tree Bylaw regulates the cutting and removal of protected trees on private land. For further information, view the Tree Bylaw background information (PDF).

View a complete summary of urban forest management policies (PDF)

The District is developing an Urban Forest Management Plan to protect, enhance, and maintain the health of West Vancouver's urban forest over the next 15 years.

View the draft Urban Forest Management Plan (PDF)

View larger mapWest Vancouver’s urban forest includes all trees, vegetation, and soil found within parks, along streets, in surrounding forests, and on private property. The urban forest is an asset that provides many important benefits for the health and livability of our community, but it continues to be impacted by climate change and development activities.

Why we need an Urban Forest Management Plan

The Urban Forest Management Plan ties together years of studies, reports, and community feedback into a cohesive plan with specific goals and strategies to support the District’s guiding policies related to urban forest management in order to maintain the health and maximize the benefits of our urban forest over the long term.

The draft plan includes five goals with a total of 58 associated strategies that aim to address the following challenges:

  • Competing uses - Urban forest goals must be balanced with other objectives in West Vancouver. Protecting and growing tree canopy will continue to require careful planning and trade-offs (development on private property and transportation routes and infrastructure on public lands).
  • Inequitable distribution - There is a 49% gap between West Vancouver’s neighbourhood with the highest canopy cover, Sunset Beach (68%), and its lowest canopy cover neighbourhood, in Ambleside 1 (19%). Growing canopy cover in those neighbourhoods will be important to distribute urban forest benefits more equitably.
  • Views - Views and trees both provide benefits to many property owners and visitors that sometimes can overlap and be perceived as detrimental to one another.
  • Climate change - Climate change has already started impacting ecosystems and communities worldwide. The urban forest is a critical natural asset to help the District in its climate change mitigation (e.g., carbon storage, rainwater management, air quality) and adaptation (e.g., shading and cooling) initiatives because of its many environmental benefits. Trees also pose a risk to the community due to impacts on the urban forest from wildfires, storm and wind events, drought, and pests, which can result in hazardous and dead trees that need to be managed.
  • Increased demand for municipal urban forest management - In recent years, the municipality has processed a growing number of tree permits and work orders for tree issues on public land.
  • Lack of data on assets in highest-use areas - Acquiring an inventory of its urban tree assets’ number, diversity, and condition would help West Vancouver plan for, budget, and maintain its urban trees more proactively over the coming years.
  • Infrastructure conflicts - Trees pose significant issues in terms of the maintenance of District infrastructure (road, culvert, watercourse blockages, tree root damage to pipes, buildings, pavements, power lines), which impact service levels, require immediate response during storm events, and pose challenges for planting trees.

View the Draft Urban Forest Management Plan (PDF) for more details.


Thank you for your feedback

The draft Urban Forest Management Plan was developed based on community feedback received during the first phase of engagement in 2022.

The survey closed on Monday, May 29 at 4 p.m.

We thank everyone that took the time to complete the survey.

Staff will further refine the draft plan based on feedback received before it proceeds to Council consideration.


Virtual information meeting

A virtual information meeting took place on Tuesday, May 16 at 12 p.m. Thank you to everyone that attended.


How did we get here?

Community engagement (PDF) held in 2022 helped develop the draft Urban Forest Management Plan.

The 2022 State of the Urban Forest Report and LiDAR Tree Canopy Study (PDF) provide a broad overview of the urban forest, the challenges with respect to climate change, and a summary of the District’s current operations for tree management.

The Tree Bylaw regulates the cutting and removal of protected trees on private land. For further information, view the Tree Bylaw background information (PDF).

View a complete summary of urban forest management policies (PDF)

  • Phase 1 Engagement (spring 2022)

    The first phase of engagement is now closed. Thank you to those who took the survey, attended a virtual information meeting, or spoke with us at Spring Fest West.

    The survey deadline was Monday, May 9, 2022 at 4 p.m.

    Virtual information meetings included a presentation followed by a feedback and question period. Watch a video of the presentation and read the materials below to learn about what was discussed.

  • Background information

    Objectives of the Urban Forest Management Plan

    The Urban Forest Management Plan will establish guidance for District staff to protect and maintain West Vancouver's urban forest ecosystem with the following objectives:

    1. Retain and plant trees on boulevards, parks, environmentally-sensitive areas, municipal, and private lands.
    2. Maintain and / or enhance the current tree canopy cover of the urban forest.
    3. Implement climate change mitigation measures.
    4. Promote and encourage the protection of protected trees as defined under the Tree Bylaw.
    5. Promote the protection of natural ecosystems, including rare species and rare ecosystems.
    6. Increase community understanding of, and support for, the urban forest.
    7. Promote the protection of healthy trees and planting of new trees during development and construction.

    Establishing tree canopy cover targets

    Looking at tree canopy cover using LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) data is one metric to look at the health and extent of the urban forest over time.



    The canopy cover includes the layer of leaves, branches, and tree stems when viewed looking down from above.



    With more studies, the District could look at other important metrics such as species diversity and age of the forest.

    As part of the Urban Forest Management Plan, West Vancouver will adopt a tree canopy cover target for the future, make recommendations on how to achieve that target, and look at conducting other studies that will provide an indication of forest health.

    View larger mapHow is West Vancouver's tree canopy cover changing?

    In 2021, the tree canopy cover was 51% of the total developed land area in the District.

    The total tree canopy cover has been relatively stable from 2018 to 2021 in most neighbourhoods across the District, however, there was significant loss in the Rodgers Creek neighbourhood where land clearing occurred for development. Significant canopy cover loss was also observed in three existing neighbourhoods primarily as a result of re-development on private land (Westmount, British Properties) and vegetation clearing along the Highway (Sunset Beach).

    To learn more about West Vancouver’s tree canopy cover, view the State of the Urban Forest Report (PDF).

    Regulating the urban forest in West Vancouver

    Urban forest management activities on public and private lands are guided and regulated by several plans, bylaws, policies, and guidelines.

    The Tree Bylaw regulates the cutting and removal of protected trees on private land. For further information, view the Tree Bylaw background information.

    Some of the key policy gaps that will be covered by the Urban Forest Management Plan include the establishment of more specific targets and benchmarks to support the District’s guiding policies related to urban forest management.

    View a complete summary of urban forest management policies (PDF)

Page last updated: 13 Jun 2023, 02:32 PM