Ottawa’s plan to grow its tree canopy has failed to take root, and local environmental advocates fear a new zoning bylaw won’t help.
In the last municipal election,
Mayor Mark Sutcliffe promised to plant one million trees
during his first mandate and is now 900,000 trees short of that goal. And despite Ottawa’s goal to have 40 per cent canopy cover, many neighbourhoods remain below 20 per cent.
Environmental advocates say mature trees are being lost to real estate development throughout the city and that they struggle to flourish in harsh urban conditions.
They say a new zoning bylaw, approved by the city’s planning and housing committee on Dec. 17, will hinder progress further as it won’t provide the kind of space needed for new trees to grow to maturity.
“We can’t have a concrete jungle with pavement everywhere,” said Erica Shardlow, the trees and greenspace coordinator for Community Associations of Environmental Sustainability (CAFES), a network of environmental advocates.
“We also can’t have new, small trees that don’t grow.”
CAFES, which attended the meeting on Dec. 17, has called for enough space in residential lots for people to plant trees that can grow to maturity in both front and back yards.
Shardlow warned that the limited soil volume, salt exposure and restricted space that trees are being planted in all hinder their growth. As a result, the tree canopy is shrinking, and the lack of trees is contributing to the formation of heat islands across the city.
“We are already seeing heat islands in neighbourhoods downtown that lack canopy cover,” Shardlow said in an interview. A heat island when pavement traps heat, making areas with less trees and low tree canopy to have higher temperatures in the summertime.
She said that a draft of the zoning bylaw included a setback of only three metres in subzones A and B, which include downtown neighbourhoods like Centretown and the Glebe. This would not have been enough space to plant a large tree that can provide canopy cover, Shardlow added.
But at the committee meeting, councillors approved a city staff recommendation to increase front-yard setbacks to 4.5 metres in subzone B. Shardlow said this was a welcome change, but fell short of what was needed.
“Overall we feel that trees still could and should have been a much bigger concern and priority among staff,” she said. “But we recognize that the new zoning-law represents a huge amount of effort put forward by staff.”
Advocates said the ideal setback for a large and medium tree is 6 metres, a goal that may be hard to achieve in urban zones.
Another issue community groups raised at the meeting was a protection for
t
he corridor by McCarthy Woods
, which runs on the east side of Rideau River in the Riverside South and Hunt Club neighbourhoods.
The Ottawa South Eco-Action Network (OSEAN), a grassroots community group, said the area should not be zoned for development immediately.
“Our concern is that in anticipation of development in the future they come in and take down all the trees, and then the land sits vacant,” said Lynne Patenaude, a retired environmental engineer and OSEAN volunteer.
River Ward’s tree canopy is below a target level of 25 per cent. Patenaude said in an interview that a fair amount of that tree canopy comes from the McCarthy corridor.
Mireille Trent, an OSEAN volunteer with a background in environmental economics, attended the meeting and highlighted the benefits of preserving green spaces like McCarthy Woods.
She said that the NCC-owned land is about 103 hectares or 150 football fields. If the forested area is cleared for housing development the city will lose even more tree canopy, leaving River Ward even farther from the goal, she added.
The committee passed a motion by River Ward Coun. Riley Brockington, which preserved the current zoning rules for the corridor in the hope of protecting meadows and wildlife. Those current rules require the NCC to submit a formal request in order to develop the land. The motion passed by a vote of 11–4.
“We can talk about the economic value of greenspaces but these areas are priceless,” Trent said. She added that while more action is needed, this motion is a “giant step in the right direction.”
On Jan. 28, 2026, the full city council will consider the changes,
which are part of a large overhaul of the city’s zoning bylaws
that will determine how and where future housing developments are built.
