AN AREA resident gives a City work crew an earful on the Birmingham Street area where trees are slated for removal. Photo by Tom Godfrey.
More than 1,000 nature lovers have signed a petition to save 12 trees on Dwight Avenue from being chopped down to install a new sidewalk.
City crews have been kept busy by complaints from area residents about the trees.
The trees slated to be axed run along the fence of Second Street Junior Middle School and provide shade, exposure to nature, and separation from a busy street to the young children who play there, according to residents and an online petition.
SOME OF the healthy trees targeted from removal by the City.
“The city has made these plans without consultation with the school, the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) or local residents,” according to the petition. We ‘call upon the city to narrow Dwight Avenue to achieve this goal, rather than remove twelve trees.”
An outraged Christina Murie, whose tree in front her historic Birmingham Business Centre was initially slated for removal, wants the city to come up with a plan to save the mature trees.
“There is no need to chop down the Dwight Street trees for a new sidewalk,” Murie explained. “Tree roots are deep and sidewalk excavation is shallow.”
She and others believe Dwight Avenue is being “widened for left turn lane and an anticipated 4,000 vehicles a day for the new occupant of the Campbell’s Soup property, rumoured to be Amazon.”
The community believes a 24-hour Amazon distribution centre is being developed with warehouses and extra road space for trucks at the former Campbell’s site.
“Local parents are upset that the trees are being cut down for Amazon,” Murie said. “Who can believe that healthy trees are getting chopped for more trucks?”
City staff told residents at a September 23 virtual information session narrowing Dwight would be costly and complicated; a left-turn lane onto Birmingham Street is half the block and catch basins would need relocated.
City crews said they receive their orders from Councillor Mark Grimes, who has declared a conflict of interest since he has property in the area.
Grimes said school parents requested the sidewalk several years ago. A large infrastructure project reconstructing and surfacing roads, replacing water mains and installing missing sidewalks presented the opportunity, he said.