Arboriculture & Urban Forestry 48(1): January 2022 17 Table 9. Native and non-native species identified through the site visits. District East North South West Total Native trees 7 (26%) 24 (53%) 29 (48%) 30 (75%) 90 (49%) Non-native trees 20 (74%) 21 (47%) 32 (52%) 20 (25%) 93 (51%) who all engaged with the permit process, collectively have a more supportive attitude towards private tree by-laws than found in recent surveys of Greater Toronto Area residents (Conway and Lue 2018). On the other hand, 30% of respondents did not plant the tree(s) required by their removal permit. Given the percentage of respondents who indicated that the requirement to plant replacement trees was clear, many non-compliant homeowners are aware of the requirement but are choosing to violate the terms of the permit. The survey and site data also suggest that replacement trees are dominated by just a few genera. Thus, there is a disconnect between maintain- ing tree counts, City of Toronto species diversity goals, and actual practices captured in the study. Although most surveyed homeowners are comply- ing with the replacement tree requirement, key groups have significantly lower rates of replacement plant- ing. Specifically, holders of construction-based tree removal permits were less likely to plant than non-construction permit holders. These findings con- firm recent research highlighting the negative impact of property-level construction on tree retention (Lee et al. 2017; Guo et al. 2018) and the potential for cumulative property (re)development-related tree removal to have a substantial impact on neighbor- hood and city-wide urban forest cover (Steenberg et al. 2018; Croeser et al. 2020). It is somewhat surprising that relatively low com- pliance is associated with construction-based removal permits in this case, as everyone included in the sur- vey sample conformed to the by-law by acquiring a tree removal permit. There are a few possible reasons why a homeowner would follow the requirement to obtain a removal permit but not meet the permit requirement of planting replacement trees. First, homeowners may have intended to plant replacement trees, but due to extended construction activities they had not yet had the chance at the time of the survey. However, we sought to minimize this occurrence by surveying people who received removal permits 2 to 3 years prior to the survey. Second, those who received construction-based tree removal permits may have been more likely to pay the fee in lieu of planting replacement trees. We do not have enough information to determine the frequency of this occur- rence. Third, non-compliance with the permit may indicate a lack of agency felt by homeowners who did not personally apply for the permit (i.e., a contractor or other service professional applied on their behalf). Finally, those who received construction-based per- mits may be less willing to plant replacement trees precisely because of the construction on the property. Previous studies have found that homeowners with higher income and/or education are more likely to remove trees on private property, but also more fre- quently plant trees and increase overall tree numbers on their property over time (Kirkpatrick et al. 2013; Lavy and Hagelman 2017). On the other hand, older homeowners have been associated with a higher like- lihood to remove trees and not plant new ones nor support regulations protecting trees (Kirkpatrick et al. 2013; Conway and Bang 2014). This survey did not find any relationships between replanting and income, education, or age of home- owners, possibly because the homeowners included in the survey were limited to those who applied for the removal permit in the first place, while homeown- ers who remove trees outside the permit process may be different in terms of socio-demographic factors, level of engagement with the city, and/or knowledge and attitudes about trees. Additionally, the majority of the surveyed homeowners had relatively high income, post-secondary education, and were in a limited age range. Thus, the homogeneity of the survey popula- tion may have muted the socio-demographic effects often associated with costs, knowledge, and attitudes. Based on the data from the site visits, the species planted were slightly more likely to be non-native than the city’s current species composition on resi- dential property (over 50% native; City of Toronto 2013). Instead, the survey and site data sources sug- gest that non-native tree species and/or those that were smaller in stature are frequently planted. For example, European beech (F. sylvatica) was planted at several properties to create a hedge, so unlikely to be allowed to grow to a large form. A broader concern is that homeowner’s reporting was typically limited to common names that could ©2022 International Society of Arboriculture
January 2022
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