Street Tree Inspections

The Arboriculture section receives over 5,500 telephone service requests a year. These include requests for:

• pruning
• planting
• tree removals
• pests and diseases

Inspectors can usually respond to customers within 1 week (this may vary due to workload); inspect the trees, discuss the situation with the customer, either in person or by telephone, and schedule the required work.

Service requests pertaining to broken, hanging branches, or unstable trees are inspected immediately, and emergency crews are dispatched directly to deal with potentially hazardous situations.

Arboriculture staff respond to hundreds of calls annually from construction and utility crews, both public and private, to ensure that trees are preserved during street, sidewalk, or utility maintenance and repair. When there is a potential conflict between street trees and construction, a meeting is required between Arboriculture and Engineering staff to discuss tree protection measures and construction alternatives.

We also reply to information about vandalism, or automobile accidents involving trees, and repair or replace the damaged trees. When we respond to sites where trees are damaged, either wilfully or through construction, we recover damages to pay for repairs or replacements. Claims for replacement for a mature, specimen can be as high as $20,000, and the entire street tree population of Vancouver has an assessed value, by standards of the International Society of Arboriculture, of over $500,000,000.

For any street tree concerns, please do not hesitate to contact us at 3-1-1 or through the Service Request online form.

• Service Request Online Form
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