News and Events

Long Branch Neighbourwoods© Tree Inventory

We launched our Neighbourwoods© project in Long Branch in the summer of 2018, and hired three students for the summer to be trained by and to work with Dr. Danijela Puric-Mladenovic, a professor in the Faculty of Forestry at the University of Toronto.

In 2019, we decided to expand the project and will have hired six students this summer. They start June 3rd.

Building on the data we gathered last summer, Dr. Puric-Mladenovic is also working on measuring the overall changes in tree canopy to provide us with feedback on whether our tree canopy is declining, increasing or just staying the same.

Our goal is to have trees covering 40% of Long Branch.

Our teams of students will come to your property and ask permission to enter your yard and conduct their inventory. Among other things, they will:

identify the species of every tree in your yard
measure the size of each tree and estimate the age
note the location of each tree
evaluate the health of each tree.

If you are interested in participating in our tree inventory project and having the tree data on your property added to our database, you can just email us with your name, address and phone number so we can arrange for one of our teams of students to come around.

The 2019 Long Branch Garden Tour is Coming Up.

Attention all gardening enthusiasts! Saturday June 22 is the date for the 2019 Long Branch Garden Tour. Mark your calendars.

This year marks the 135th birthday of this beautiful community, and the 2019 garden tour promises to be better than ever.

If you would like to have YOUR garden included as part of the tour, it’s not too late to register. We have to close registration soon to allow us time to design and print the brochure and map showing the participating gardens, so register yours by contacting us.

Then on June 22nd, come visit Long Branch between 10 am and 4 pm and enjoy over 3 dozen beautiful gardens. Best of all – it’s free!

To learn more, visit our website longbranchgardentour.ca

Long Branch Remembers

Long Branch Neighbourhood Association executive member Bill Zufelt (back left), École élémentaire Micheline-Saint-Cyr principal Mirela Lonian and school superintendent Sebastien Fontaine are joined by (from left) students Mahad Nour, 10, Anagha Vishnu, 4, Karen Wizere-Johnson, 10, Faith Lourenco, 4, Roman Liu, 10, Ananya Vishnu, 4, and Dana Sharifi, 10, in celebration of the Long Branch Remembers tree planting on the school grounds. – Staff/Torstar

This year, the LBNA planted 100 trees to honour Canadian Veterans as part of a program to plant 300 trees to commemorate veterans in Long Branch. The program is known as Long Branch Remembers.

All trees planted are native species and were planted at residences in Long Branch whose owners wished to honour a family member who was a veteran.

Here is a link to an article by Tamara Shephard in the Etobicoke Guardian with more details.

Annual General Meeting

We are holding our Annual General Meeting on Thursday, November 7th at the Royal Canadian Legion Branch 101 on Lakeshore Boulevard West in Long Branch.

This will be an occasion for you join with us in celebrating the many successes of the past year and to meet the current members of the Board of Directors.

It’s also an opportunity for you to ask questions or raise issues that affect our Neighbourhood. When we understand what your concerns are, it provides the Board with better direction to help us set priorities and develop programs to address those issues.

This also is the time when we will hold elections for our Board of Directors.

We are planning to expand the size of the Board from 8 members to 12, so we can work on new programs and bring new skills to our leadership.

There will be a separate notice about a call for nominations and to outline the Board positions that are available. We are especially looking for people with skills in fundraising and communications as well as people with planning or legal backgrounds to support our TLAB appeal activities.

Long Branch Tree Fest

This year’s Long Branch Tree Fest will be held on Sunday, September 22nd in Marie Curtis Park. From noon until 4 pm, you can visit over 50 exhibitors and vendors and participate in a variety of activities for all ages.

This also is a special occasion, as it marks the 135th Anniversary of the incorporation of the Village of Long Branch.

We have a number of local musicians to entertain you and there will be an open mic to allow young musicians to showcase their skills.

For adults, we have yoga and nature walks to explore the trails in Marie Curtis Park and enjoy the beauty of the park.

For kids, we have story-telling and face painting.

In keeping with the theme of celebrating and preserving the urban forest around us, we have an arborist to answer your questions about trees and, for avid gardeners, we will have a plant exchange and giveaway of shrubs.

The Long Branch Tree Fest is made possible through the generous support of a number of public and private organizations including:

The Toronto Parks and Trees Foundation
The City of Toronto
Toronto Pearson Airport
TD Park People Grants
The Long Branch Business Improvement Association
Fair Grounds Organic Cafe

We look forward to seeing you there. See other Long Branch events here.

Severance of 70 Thirty Sixth Street Refused at TLAB

On July 3^rd., 2019, the Toronto Local Appeal Body (TLAB) released its decision on a proposed severance of 70 Thirty Sixth Street. Mr. Ted Yao, who was the presiding member for TLAB, refused the appeal in a 23-page decision order.

The owners of 70 Thirty Sixth originally applied to sever the property into two lots and build two new homes. In addition to being opposed by owners of neighbouring properties, the application was opposed by Urban Forestry and Councillor Mark Grimes. City Planning expressed concerns over the severance and variances in their July 24, 2017 Planning Report and recommended deferral. The Committee of Adjustment refused the application on December 7, 2017.

The owners subsequently appealed the Committee of Adjustment decision and the appeal went to TLAB.

At the request of Councillor Grimes’ office, the City assigned one of their lawyers to the appeal and 8 residents were accepted as Participants for the hearing so they could be heard.

The Long Branch Neighbourhood Association (LBNA) was also granted Participant status as well as the right to lead and cross-examine witnesses and make closing submissions. Behind the scenes, the LBNA supported the residents with coaching and preparation, review and filing of documents. The LBNA also liaised with City Legal to coordinate our respective cases and to avoid unnecessary duplication.

The entire hearing required 6 days from July 26, 2018 to June 19, 2019. The number of days was a reflection of the complexity of the case and the elapsed time from start to finish was a function of having to schedule more days than originally planned and finding dates that worked for all Parties.

In his decision, Mr. Yao stated, “the area contains a significant proportion of 50-foot lots, especially in the eastern part of Mr. Ciecura’s (the applicant’s expert planning witness) study area, for which a severance would be destabilizing to the lot fabric.” and “the proposed design is an abrupt change in character, particularly not respecting side yards and lot size characteristics.”

Another factor was the impact of the proposal on the tree canopy in Long Branch. The application proposed removing a healthy, protected private tree and injuring/removing a healthy protected city tree.

Mr. Yao concluded, “a suitable growing environment for trees will not be enhanced, nor will there be an increase in an existing (tree) canopy.”

This was the second refusal of a severance application on Thirty Sixth Street following a full hearing. In March 2018, the TLAB Chair, Ian Lord, issued a refusal of an application at 38 Thirty Sixth Street. In November 2018, the owners of 32 Thirty Sixth abandoned an appeal of a proposed severance. In May of this year, the Committee of Adjustment unanimously refused variances sought by the owners of 30 Thirty Sixth after their application for severance had been granted by the OMB in 2018, but refused the variances associated with the proposed homes.

A positive side effect from the process was that the neighbours got to work together as a team towards a common purpose and this helped forge new relationships as well as reinforcing existing ones.

As Mr. Yao stated in his decision, “Strong communities are those where people want to live.”

To see the full text of Mr. Yao’s decision, click here to view and/or download a copy.

To see the status of other severance applications in Long Branch, click here to visit our page summarizing severance applications over the past 10 years.

Tree for Me 2019 a Big Success

On Saturday, May 25th, we held our second Tree for Me event at Colonel Samuel Smith Park.

In 2018, we gave residents approximately 300 trees. This year, we increased that to 446 trees.

Despite heavy rain during the early hours of the event, we had residents lining up to pick up their free trees, and walking away with big smiles on their faces. For the LBNA Volunteers, it was very rewarding to see those smiles.

The LBNA held its second annual Tree for Me event — James Maloney, MP, Jenny, Kerry, Judy, Christine and Ron

Our MP, James Maloney, even took time out from his busy schedule to attend and to see the Bird Festival that was also underway at the Park.

On behalf of the LBNA Board, we’d like to thank both the residents and the volunteers who came out for the event and we expect next year’s Tree for Me event to be even more successful.