Category: Victoria – Urban Forest
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What Does It Mean to Live in an Urban Forest?
By Squirrel For Mayor Living in an urban forest isn’t just about having trees nearby or pockets of green space stitched between streets and buildings. It’s about place—and the many spaces required for life to unfold across species, seasons, and scales. In this short video, we see black-tailed deer teaching their young, a Cooper’s hawk navigating food spaces, Read more
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Setbacks, Soil, and Survival: Why Urban Forest Protection in Victoria Starts with Space
By Squirrel for Mayor Setbacks are often treated as a technical zoning detail—numbers on a site plan to be minimized in the pursuit of density. In reality, setbacks are one of the most powerful tools a city has to protect its urban forest, safeguard biodiversity, and uphold climate resilience and public safety. In the City Read more
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Urban Forest and Land Use Development Analysis: Rockland Neighbourhood Ryan Senechal MUFL, October 2025
AbstractThis report examines the relationship between urban forest canopy, land-use policy, and development pressures in the Rockland neighbourhood within the context of the City of Victoria’s 2025 Official Community Plan update and its 2050 urban forest canopy targets. Drawing on City datasets, LiDAR-based canopy analyses, tree inventory records, annual reports, and information obtained through Freedom Read more
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City of Victoria – Official Community Plan 10-Year Update: Official Community Plan Bylaw, Zoning Bylaw 2018 and Zoning Regulation Bylaw Amendments
The Rockland Neighbourhood Association and the Garry Oak Meadow Preservation Society presented at the public hearing for the Official Community Plan Update on September 11, 2025. The hearing took place over the course of four hearing dates, with Mayor and Councillors voting 5 to 3 to approve the new blueprint for the City and its Read more
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The Inconvenient Garry Oak Ecosystem: Distinguishing Native Trees from House Plants through Victoria’s Draft OCP.
By Squirrel for Mayor August 26, 2025 The urban area of the City of Victoria is the Garry oak (Quercus garryana) ecosystem (GOE) – a fact often left out of discussions on the urban forest. GOE or Kwetlal food system in lək̓ʷəŋən language, have been shaped by Indigenous agroecological management for thousands of years. It Read more
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Do Tree Protection Bylaws really “protect” the urban forest since the introduction of new housing regulations and legislation?
Tree Protection bylaws for the urban forest are municipal. Each municipality is slightly different, but they are all affected by provincial legislation. Citizens believe that these bylaws protect the urban forest. The word “protection” is in the name, so it’s a fair assumption, but it requires a deeper look. Let’s use the City of Victoria’s Read more
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Why is Plantable Space an important metric
As a measurement, plantable space is the leading indicator of an sustainable urban forest, while overall tree canopy measurement is a lagging indicator. A loss of plantable space reduces the opportunity for canopy at the local level, meaning at the neighbourhood level. The benefits that the trees provide and protects the whole of a city for shade, stormwater and heat reduction through evaporation. Read more
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Gonzales Community Green Map
In 2018, the Gonzales Neighbourhood Association (GNA) initiated a community mapping exercise in cooperation with the University of Victoria – Geography Department. Seven years later, they are proud to announce that the Community Map is finished. The 2025 map includes a proposed migration corridor that links the ocean environment found at the Gonzales Observatory with the protected Read more
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Remote Sensing: Garry Oak Species Detection Project
Squirrel for Mayor was at the Victoria International Airport on June 24, 2025 for the Remote Sensing: Garry Oak Species Detection Project with the Garry Oak Meadow Preservation Society and Terra Remote Sensing to launch a Bell 206B3 Jet Ranger, equipped with a Phase One IXM-100 camera for aerial data acquisition to perform Garry oak species detection Read more
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Index of documentation related to Centennial Square and the Sequoia
Originally posted at CRD WATCH In order to make information about Centennial Square and the Sequoia organized and easily accessible, CRDWatch.ca has made an index of documentation regarding Centennial Square and the Sequoia. The index is a stark challenge to the City of Victoria’s faulty narrative regarding the tree, which collapsed when faced with the analysis of a Read more