Expansion of urban canopy in Medicine Hat may come with approved budget

“This opportunity gives us more trees at a reduced cost sooner,” he said.

The amendment involved about $3.5 million for the Growing Canada’s Community Canopies grant.

Richter said investing in the urban canopy now will increase future benefits, including increased property values and physical and mental health benefits.

Trees improve air quality, leading to better health and reduced healthcare costs.

Councillor Alison Van Dyke said urban canopies are really important to the community.

“People care about how the city looks, but now that I’ve been a councillor, it’s even more obvious to me,” she said.

“People are very passionate about how the city appears to themselves and to visitors to the community, and so having a healthy tree canopy makes a big difference.”

The city said benefits of canopies also include energy savings — as trees provide shade and windbreaks, reducing the need for air conditioning in summer and heating in winter.

It said trees also absorb and store carbon dioxide, helping to mitigate climate change, and absorb rainfall, reducing demand on stormwater infrastructure.

Alison Van Dyke speaks during a Medicine Hat city council meeting. Eli J. Ridder/CHAT News

Van Dyke said the project is a great opportunity to replace trees that were lost through age, disease and drought.

“It was devastating going down to Echo Dale [Regional Park] after the windstorm and seeing all those trees having to be removed, and just how it changed the appearance of places,” she said.

“We had to remove trees from a variety of locations this last year because of death from drought. So to replace them, people are really concerned about them being replaced.”

Richter said the city used LiDAR to have a better sense of what the city’s canopy coverage was in 2023, and said it’s about 7.6 percent.

He said Calgary’s coverage is almost nine per cent, so the city is relatively similar — but sectors that had a higher population density with a really low tree canopy cover were found.

Richter said the city will concentrate plantings where people and lower canopy levels are.

The project also intends to engage grade five and six students over its three years from local school boards in a ‘Tree Inquiry’ project that aligns with current curriculum.

The initiative will allow each student to plant and maintain a five gallon tree, adding what the city said will be an additional 4,305 private trees throughout the community.

Richter said with a semi-arid desert climate in Medicine Hat, trees struggle without moisture, especially when young.

He said trees wouldn’t be planted through the summer, and the city has a scientific system to water trees mindfully.

“Summer is not ideal for planting but so we would try to do what we can in the spring, do what we can in the fall, and then really get ready for 2026 planting season,” he said.

Richter said if the application is successful the city will be initiating a “fairly aggressive” planting plan for the rest of the year.

by Jayk Sterkenburg

Expansion of urban canopy in Medicine Hat may come with approved budget

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