Weather events
On April 5, 2023, a weather event consisting of freezing rain, rain, and strong winds resulted in significant ice build-up, power outages, tree damage, and ponding throughout the Ottawa region. Public Works staff are focusing their efforts on restoring areas heavily impacted by the storm in addition to continuing to provide the everyday services residents rely on.
Forestry Services has received an extremely high volume of calls related to fallen trees and broken branches caused by the weather event. Staff are currently triaging calls and are continuing to prioritize tree and limb damage that has been deemed hazardous to residents or property in addition to trees or limbs blocking roadways. Once these immediate hazards and damages are addressed, staff will work to address non-hazardous removals, pruning, broken limbs, and brush cleanup. Your continued patience is appreciated as we navigate the next steps of our recovery efforts.
A reminder: Property owners do not need a permit to remove dead or hazardous trees on their private property where the tree is an immediate threat to public health or safety. Photos should be taken prior to removal of dead or hazardous trees in such cases to provide evidence of the condition of the tree and the reason for exemption.
If you need to report a tree or limb that is hazardous or blocking a roadway, please call 3-1-1.
Trees and debris
- Our Public Works Department is focusing efforts to complete the cleanup of large storm debris. We ask that, where possible, residents make use of the leaf and yard waste program,
- The City is continuing its commitment to re-establishing the lost tree canopy by re-planting lost City trees. Residents who would like a tree replacement on the City’s right of way are encouraged to request it through the Trees in Trust program.
Woodchips
- Some of the leaf and yard waste that has been collected as part of the recent recovery efforts have been turned into woodchips and will be made available to residents free of charge.
- Woodchips stations are currently established here.
Tree inventory
Tree inventories are an essential tool to protect and enhance urban and rural forests which helps ensure healthy forests for generations to come. They are useful to help maintain diversity in the street tree population, assess the health of the urban forest, and communicate with property owners. Inventories need to be updated regularly in order to help schedule tree maintenance work, determine planting sites, and manage invasive insects. The inventory of city-owned trees began in March 2009 and once completed it will contain information on over 300,000 street and park trees, woodlots, ravines, and community forests. Information such as species, diameter, health condition and GPS location is gathered on individual street trees and downloaded into a database where the records can be extracted and mapped to provide information on the number of different types of trees on a particular street. New tree data is collected on an ongoing basis as tree inspections or routine tree maintenance work is completed.
The dataset provides an inventory of City-owned trees located on the road right-of-way, and in parks. Some privately-owned trees are also collected by Forestry staff are included the dataset for reference. The dataset should not be used for ownership verification. Not all information has been verified for precision or accuracy and therefore should only be used in an advisory capacity. Forestry Services reserves the right to revise the data pursuant to further inspection or review.
The Tree Inventory dataset is available on the Open.Ottawa.ca site, or can be viewed in geoOttawa. Tree Inventory data is made available with the Open Data Licence Version 2.0.
If you find any errors or omissions, please report them to 3-1-1.