Launches first Urban Forest Management Plan; Celebrates success of Environmental Strategy

RICHMOND HILL – Richmond Hill Council continues to champion green initiatives in support of a healthy environment for Richmond Hill residents, now and in the future.

At a recent meeting, Council approved Richmond Hill’s first Urban Forest Management Plan to strengthen the City’s ability to maintain a healthy urban forest until 2040. Currently Richmond Hill’s urban forest contains approximately 2.6 million trees on public and private property. It helps keep our community healthy and resilient by cleaning the air and water, reducing flood risk, conserving energy and counteracting urban heat stress.

The plan builds on a strong foundation of urban forest management in Richmond Hill. It provides tangible commitments to protect and grow our urban forest, including developing urban forest planting and protection standards, formalizing our young tree structural pruning program and fostering partnerships with academic institutions to support urban forest research.

Urban forest management is part of Richmond Hill’s broader Environment Strategy, Greening the Hill: Our Community, Our Future. While work continues on the strategy in 2020, Council recognized the success achieved last year as Richmond Hill strives to become a more sustainable community, including:

• Diverting over 14,350 lbs. of e-waste collected at the 2019 Healthy Yards event
• Converting 1,000 park and parking lot lights to LED. This was in addition to 11,400 streetlights in 2018, together achieving a cost savings of $650,000 annually.
• Improving biodiversity and increasing tree cover on private lands by selling and distributing more than 3,000 wildflowers, 1,250 trees and shrubs, 280 rain barrels, and 220 composters
• Improving resiliency and protecting infrastructure from flooding, erosion and damage through stormwater management and valleyland restoration
• Launching the development of a Corporate Climate Change Framework and Community Energy and Emissions Plan to help Richmond Hill become more resilient to the effects of climate change

Richmond Hill Council also proclaimed August 22 Flight of the Monarch Day to further strengthen the City’s commitment to provide public education on Monarch butterflies and other pollinators. Council earmarked $10,000 for the purchase of Monarch-friendly plants to provide to 200 residents for the creation of Monarch habitats on their own property. Kits will be available at RichmondHill.ca/Pollinators.

Urban Forest Quick Facts

• City staff and contractors plant roughly 800 trees every year
• Approximately 18,000 community volunteers have planted more than 200,000 trees in the City’s parks and natural areas through the award-winning Community Stewardship Program since 1998
• Residents have purchased more than 13,800 trees and shrubs through the Healthy Yards Program to plant on their private property since 2005
• Tree planting initiatives like these, in combination with natural tree canopy growth have helped Richmond Hill’s tree canopy to increase substantially since 2010. Based on the City’s land area of 10,008 hectares (excluding water), Richmond Hill’s urban tree canopy increased from 24.5% in 2010 to approximately 29.1% (2,912 hectares in total). This is in line with York Region’s Forest Management Plan, which sets a 26-35% total canopy cover target for Richmond Hill by 2051.

Additional Links

• Learn more about Richmond Hill’s environment and green initiatives at RichmondHill.ca/Environment

Quotes

“We recognize how important it is to safeguard Richmond Hill’s natural environment for future generations. Our Environment Strategy has been guiding the City’s efforts to protect and champion the environment for five successful years. Council is proud of the work our staff and community have done to improve our performance on green initiatives.”  - Mayor Dave Barrow

Media Contacts

Ash O’Malley, Communications Advisor, 905-771-2542, ash.omalley@richmondhill.ca
Libbi Hood, Communications Advisor, 905-771-6320, libbi.hood@richmondhill.ca