A development company has been fined $50,000 after 100 trees were cut down without a required permit on an almost six-acre property in Nanaimo.Top Down Investments, based in Duncan, came to a settlement agreement with the city after the trees were removed at 924 Old Victoria Rd., a 5.9-acre site zoned for light industrial use in the city’s south end.
The company must also pay $31,200 as a security deposit to Nanaimo for replacement trees, which would have been required in any case, Jeremy Holm, Nanaimo’s director of development approvals, said Tuesday. He also noted that the felled trees, a mix of species, were not prohibited from being removed, saying Nanaimo would have granted a permit to remove the trees if the developer had applied for it before cutting. For example, the trees were not in an environmentally sensitive area.
The security deposit may be used for new trees on the Old Victoria property or in another location. Nanaimo runs a tree voucher program that helps residents offset the cost of a tree and is funded by tree replacement fees.
They got off way to easy.