A little BIG tree problem.

We have a very big Silver Maple in our front yard.  We do love trees but when the tree is this close to the house, it leads to problems when it comes time to excavate.  OK, I'm going to straight out say it:  We want it gone! 

The Silver Maple

Scott has a friend who works as an Assistant Planner for the City of Toronto in the Tree Protection & Plan Review Dept.  We asked her to give us some guidance as to what to do with the tree.  She came out to look at our tree and reported that it's got some serious structural issues.  There are open cracks on either sides of the main trunk.  Potentially the tree could split in half.  If this happens, the main parts of the crown wouldn't land on our house but rather on the neighbour's and the road.  She wasn't sure if their Operations guy would consider it for a standard removal (ie, no cost to us).  We could try to apply for a removal permit (which will cost $300 application and possibly the standing value of the tree roughly $5000) and then we'll have to hire someone to remove it at our own cost which could go for around $1500-$3000.  YIKES!!!


We may just keep the tree and risk having it fall on the neighbour's and hopefully not on our new house.