A Calgary woman put in a request to have the tree in front of her home pruned and was surprised to come home and see nothing but a stump and pile of saw dust.
Last summer, Mandy Wong emailed the city to have a large green ash tree on the edge of her property pruned because the branches were dying.
Wong says the mature trees are one of the reasons she settled in the community of Killarney in the first place.
“We live in this area because it’s a mature neighbourhood all the big trees here,” said Wong.
Wong says the city never responded to her email, the pruning was never done and instead the whole tree was removed sometime this week.
“I came home from work looked outside all I see is debris and dirt. Where is my tree? They took down my tree without telling me,” said Wong. “This is outrageous at first I thought who would do such a thing? I'm like is it the city, we were trying to put the pieces together.”
On Tuesday, construction crews that were working next door saw a tree removal company stop by.
"They brought their big truck here and then they put up this thing with their chainsaws and started cutting everything down,” said Paul Basra.
The city says contractors were sent out to do the job.
“The tree was a green ash, it was about 14 inches in diameter so that makes it about 15 years old. It was in major decline over 50 percent of the tree's canopy was dead so there was nothing to prune back to,” said Jill-Anne Spence with the City of Calgary Parks Department.
The city says it received a service request from a man in September, asking for work on the tree.
They did it this week but Wong says no man in her house put in the request so the city is now investigating.
“We remove trees as a last resort, we look at all the issues before we will remove a tree,” said Spence.
The city claims that it tries to contact those who make a service request but admits it's sometimes neighbours who make a call.
Whoever it was that made the request, Wong wants to know why she wasn't given any notice.
“Contact me, get a time when I’m home to make sure when they cut down the tree it doesn't fall down and damage my house and at least let me know who did it so I don't have to go around to my neighbours to find out who cut my tree,” said Wong.
Wong called the city instead of a private tree removal company because technically the tree is on city property.
The city says there aren't any standard guidelines for the property line and that it depends on the street.
In some cases it is obvious what area is considered city property because of the presence of medians or the green strip between the street and sidewalk but in others it isn’t as clear.
The city says if anyone with a tree in question you can contact 311 and a crew will come assess the tree and see if it’s on public property.
If a tree does have to be removed, the city will re-plant it in the next growing season.
(With files from Ina Sidhu)
