Town seeking grant funding to plant roughly 350 trees

Amherstburg Municipal Building.

The Town of Amherstburg has already declared 2025 “The Year of the Tree” and is now seeking federal funding to help more trees be planted.

The town has applied to the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) Green Municipal Fund and, if the town receives funding, administration is now authorized to fund the town’s portion of the grant expense up to the amount of $74,564 from the tree reserve with the remaining portion of the town’s expense to be drawn from the existing operational budget for tree planting in 2026 and 2027.

The town’s plan is to put approximately 350 trees in the ground throughout the urban areas.

“In applying for the FCM Grant, the Town would seek to plant approximately 350 trees within the Town’s road right of way. The locations of plantings will be confirmed through visual inspections of the subject sites by a trained arborist to ensure that there is adequate space and conditions for plantings. The plan calls for Carolinian tree species to be planted, diversifying the species provided in locations to prevent loss due to monoculture. For the most part, the trees will be planted in the front of residential property where a tree does not currently exist. The Town has two years to plant the trees and there is a one year maintenance and monitoring requirement,” stated a report co-authored by manager of roads and fleet Eric Chamberlain and clerk Kevin Fox. “If successful in obtaining the grant, the plan would be to plant the trees in the fall of 2026 with maintenance and monitoring being completed in 2027. In completing this planting initiative, the roads division ability to continue the town’s tree canopy policy as it relates to the two planted tree for every one removed within the right of way will be limited, and will therefore need to apply to parkland tree plantings. In the future, administration will need to identify town parkland properties to plant additional trees or council would need to rework this element of the policy to account for having achieved the stated goals.”

Chamberlain said the trees would be planted in front of existing homes, not new builds. Any new development would see the developer responsible for tree planting, he added.

Councillor Diane Pouget said there are recently planted trees that are not looking to be in good shape and wondered if they are covered as part of this application. Chamberlain said trees already planted are not included and added trees have a “rough” stretch at first as they were uprooted from the nursery and have to re-establish roots in the new location.

“They are struggling to produce roots in the ground and they might not look as healthy. They do make a rebound,” said Chamberlain.

Mayor Michael Prue said it is a “remarkable thing that is happening here” and hoped the town got approved for the grant.

“We can have a canopy in the downtown that is the envy of Essex County. It already is,” he said. “We have more trees than any other municipality in Essex County.”

Town seeking grant funding to plant roughly 350 trees

By Ron Giofu