Letters to Government – Action on Urban Forest and Climate-ready housing and Communities
Thank you for taking action for our shared well-being!
Find contact information for key government contacts here.
SECTION 1 – Letter to Mayor and Council re Action on Urban Forest
Step 1. Do a quick search online for your local mayor and council contact email. For Coquitlam email: mayor_council@coquitlam.ca
Step 2: Copy-paste the email below and add your own words to personalize it.
Step 3: Encourage your friends, family and community groups to send in emails too!
Dear Mayor and Council,
I am writing as a concerned resident who wants to see our community become more affordable, livable, and resilient as we face the growing impacts of climate change. One of the most effective and immediate steps the City can take is to protect and expand our trees, urban forests, and natural assets. These are not amenities, they are essential infrastructure that keep our neighbourhoods cooler, safer, and prevent deaths like the over 600 B.C. residents who died in the catastrophic 2021 heat dome.
I am asking Council to take strong, coordinated action to safeguard our natural assets, strengthen climate-health resilience, and support truly affordable, climate-ready housing. Specifically, I urge the City to:
- Protect Trees & Urban Forests
- Adopt a minimum 40% neighbourhood canopy target within the urban containment boundary and ensure no net canopy loss in all redevelopment.
- Prioritize the retention of mature trees, including those on private land.
- Apply the 3-40-300 rule in all neighbourhood planning. (Note that 40% tree canopy cover is the goal set by Metro Vancouver.)
- Treat trees, soils, ravines, parks, and green corridors as critical municipal infrastructure.
- Require Natural Asset Valuation Reports for corridor planning and Transit-Oriented Area (TOA) shoulder redevelopment.
- Strengthen the tree protection bylaw and embed urban-forest safeguards into all city policies.
- Update or prepare a strong Urban Forest Strategy with clear canopy targets and timelines.
- Support and incentivize residents to plant and maintain trees on private property.
- Manage Land Use with Climate & Health in Mind
- Use the WHO Climate & Health Toolkit to guide planning decisions.
- Embed Health Impact Assessments into land-use, housing, and mobility planning.
- Publicly report how planning and rezoning decisions support or hinder climate-health resilience with clear metrics.
3. Support Affordable, Climate-Resilient Housing
- Pre-zone land for co-op and non-profit housing to reduce costs and speed up development of permanently affordable homes.
- Make city-owned land available through freehold transfers or long-term leases to mission-driven housing providers.
- Review and apply the guidance in Sierra Club BC’s Climate-Ready Communities Toolkit to ensure all new housing and neighbourhood planning is climate-resilient, equitable, and nature-positive.
These actions work together. Protecting natural assets, preventing more deaths from extreme heat, and enabling affordable climate-ready housing are not separate policies, they form the foundation of a safe, thriving, and future-proof city. Urban forests and natural systems protect residents from extreme heat, flooding, and air pollution, while community-owned housing ensures people can afford to stay in the neighbourhoods they love.
I urge you to show leadership by making these priorities central to the City’s planning, housing, and climate strategies.
The 2022 Extreme Heat Death Review Panel Report to the Chief Coroner of British Columbia provided clear, actionable recommendations to prevent future heat-related deaths. Among these, the report emphasized the importance of increasing tree canopy, green spaces, and permeable surfaces to cool urban environments, especially in neighbourhoods with high levels of material deprivation.
Yet we continue to see a net loss of tree canopy and inequitable access to cooling, particularly in neighbourhoods most vulnerable to extreme heat. This is a matter of survival and action is needed today.
Thank you for your service to our community. I look forward to seeing the City take bold steps to protect the natural systems that support us all and to expand affordable, climate-resilient housing for current and future residents.
Sincerely,
[Your Name]
[Your Address]
[City], BC
[Email]
[Date]
SECTION 2 – Letter to Eby and the Housing Minister
Step 1: Copy-paste the email below and add your own words to personalize it.
Step 2: Encourage your friends, family and community groups to send in emails too!
Email: premier@gov.bc.ca, hma.Minister@gov.bc.ca, EMCR.Minister@gov.bc.ca, HLTH.Minister@gov.bc.ca, and cc your own MLA (go online to “ Find Your BC MLA by postal code”)
Dear Premier Eby and Ministers Boyle, Greene, and Osborne,
I am writing as a concerned resident of British Columbia who wants to see our province take urgent, coordinated action to ensure that new housing, higher-density redevelopment, and provincial planning policies truly protect the health, safety, and wellbeing of people and communities.
As extreme heat, wildfire smoke, and climate-related hazards worsen, BC must lead the country in creating neighbourhoods that are affordable, safe, and climate-resilient. To do this, our housing policies and our planning legislation must meaningfully protect natural assets, urban forests, and community health.
These are not amenities, they are essential infrastructure that keep our neighbourhoods cooler, safer, and prevent deaths like the over 600 B.C. residents who died in the catastrophic heat dome.
I respectfully urge the Province to take the following actions:
1. Housing & Density That Protects Health and Wellbeing
- Prioritize co-op and non-profit housing in Transit-Oriented Area (TOA) shoulders and major corridors to ensure that affordability keeps pace with densification.
- Require all higher-density housing to include cooling, ventilation, shade, and green buffers to protect residents during extreme heat and wildfire smoke events.
- Stop rezonings that increase density without preserving or restoring tree canopy and permeable natural surfaces.
- Implement the WHO Heat-Health Action Plan across all provincial housing, planning, and infrastructure decisions.
- Ensure all high-density neighbourhoods include a cooling refuge within 300 metres of every home.
- Require all TOA developments to provide publicly accessible shade and cooling, including tree planting, green infrastructure, and indoor cooling spaces.
2. Affordability & Stability
- Accelerate provincial funding for non-market and deeply affordable housing, especially for households earning under $50,000 per year, who are most vulnerable to displacement and climate impacts.
- Re-capitalize the Rental Protection Fund to allow non-profit housing providers to preserve existing affordable rental homes and protect renters from renovictions and speculation.
3. Urban Forest Protection in Provincial Legislation
- Revise regulations under Bills 44 and 47 to require municipalities to protect trees, permeable natural surfaces, and landscape areas as part of all higher-density redevelopment.
- Include strong, enforceable urban forest and natural asset requirements in all provincial planning and development policies so that densification does not come at the expense of community safety, climate resilience, or public health.
These changes are urgently needed. Dense, walkable, transit-rich communities are essential, but only if they are built in ways that protect people from extreme heat, support mental and physical health, maintain green space, and ensure long-term affordability. Without clear provincial direction and enforceable standards, municipalities will continue struggling to balance housing needs with public health, climate resilience, and the protection of urban forests.
By embedding nature, cooling, affordability, and health protections into our housing and planning systems, the Province can ensure that density enhances, not undermines, the wellbeing of British Columbians.
The 2022 Extreme Heat Death Review Panel Report to the Chief Coroner of British Columbia provided clear, actionable recommendations to prevent future heat-related deaths. Among these, the report emphasized the importance of increasing tree canopy, green spaces, and permeable surfaces to cool urban environments, especially in neighbourhoods with high levels of material deprivation.
Yet we continue to see a net loss of tree canopy and inequitable access to cooling, particularly in neighbourhoods most vulnerable to extreme heat. This is a matter of survival and action is needed today.
Thank you for your attention to these critical issues. I urge you to act swiftly to ensure that BC’s housing and land-use changes create communities that are healthy, affordable, climate-resilient, and safe for everyone.
Sincerely,
[Your Name]
[Your Address]
[City], BC
[Email]
[Date]
SECTION 3 – Letter to the PM and the Housing Minister
Emails: Mark.Carney@parl.gc.ca, gregor.robertson@parl.gc.ca,
Step 1: Copy-paste the email below and add your own words to personalize it.
Step 2: Encourage your friends, family and community groups to send in emails too!
Dear Prime Minister Carney and Minister Robertson,
I am writing as a concerned Canadian resident who believes strongly that the federal government must take bold, decisive action to build and protect affordable housing, especially for those most vulnerable, and to support green infrastructure, including urban forests, that safeguard public health and climate resilience.
These are not amenities, they are essential infrastructure that keep our neighbourhoods cooler, safer, and prevent deaths like the over 600 who died in the catastrophic heat dome in B.C. in 2021.
I respectfully urge you to take the following actions at the federal level:
1. Support Indigenous & Urban Green Infrastructure
- Fully fund the Urban, Rural, and Northern Indigenous Housing Strategy so that Indigenous communities, especially those in remote, northern, or underserved urban areas, receive the support they need for safe, affordable, and culturally appropriate housing.
- Re-establish a national 2 Billion Trees initiative, with strong funding dedicated specifically to urban forestry and green infrastructure. This should include support for planting and maintaining trees in cities, towns, and Indigenous communities, to improve air quality, reduce heat risks, and build climate resilience.
2. Build & Protect Affordable Homes
- Make federal land available for non-market housing developments, including co-operative and non-profit housing, especially on underutilized properties.
- Provide stable, long-term, low-interest financing for co-op and non-profit housing providers to enable the construction and maintenance of truly affordable, secure homes.
- Fully fund the federal Build Canada Homes program and the existing federal co-op housing program to meet the urgent demand for affordable rental housing across the country.
- Extend rent-geared-to-income (RGI) subsidies for co-op and non-market households beyond 2028 to ensure long-term affordability and housing stability.
- Launch a Canada Rental Protection Fund immediately to protect renters, prevent renovictions, and stabilize rental housing for low- and moderate-income Canadians.
By making federal land available, investing in non-market housing, and providing long-term financial support, Canada can dramatically reduce housing insecurity and homelessness, while enabling stable, affordable homes for people and families across income levels. At the same time, building and protecting urban green infrastructure, particularly in cities and Indigenous communities, is one of the most effective and cost-efficient ways to safeguard public health, combat climate change, and improve quality of life.
I urge you to use the federal government’s resources and influence to ensure that affordability, stability, equity, and sustainability are central to all housing and infrastructure programs. The need is urgent; your leadership can make a real difference in the lives of countless Canadians, and in our country’s resilience to climate and social challenges.
The 2022 Extreme Heat Death Review Panel Report to the Chief Coroner of British Columbia provided clear, actionable recommendations to prevent future heat-related deaths. Among these, the report emphasized the importance of increasing tree canopy, green spaces, and permeable surfaces to cool urban environments, especially in neighbourhoods with high levels of material deprivation.
Yet we continue to see a net loss of tree canopy and inequitable access to cooling, particularly in neighbourhoods most vulnerable to extreme heat. This is a matter of survival and action is needed today.
Thank you for your attention to these vital issues. I look forward to your response and to concrete federal action.
Sincerely,
[Your Name]
[Your Address]
[City], BC
[Email]
[Date]