A small town in Quebec’s Montérégie region is trying a novel approach to help mitigate the impacts of climate change and accelerate the greening of the community.
As of 2025, homeowners in Saint-Amable, Que., roughly 40 kilometres east of Montreal, are being charged an annual surtax of $200 if they don’t have at least one leafy, deciduous tree in their front yard
Saint-Amable general manager Jean-Sébastien Ménard pointed to a recent report out of Université Laval that showed the town’s high vulnerability and exposure to extreme heat events.
Ménard said the report was a wake-up call.
“It was like a punch,” he said.
Ménard said the eco tax was put in place to encourage residents to adopt more environmentally friendly behaviours and plant more trees.
The trees, he said, are needed to combat the phenomenon of heat islands.
Heat islands can lead to the deterioration of air quality and can also adversely affect human health and well-being, increasing the burden on health facilities.
The money collected from the tax is being reinvested into greening initiatives in the municipality, Ménard said.
New urban developments often lack tree cover
At first glance, it might be surprising to find that a small town with a population of 13,322, nestled among agricultural fields, is grappling with heat islands. But a closer look reveals the real issue.
“There’s a definite lack of large trees,” said David Wees, a faculty lecturer with McGill University’s department of plant science.
He added it’s not uncommon in new urban developments.
According to Centris.ca, an online real-estate brokerage website, 45 per cent of homes in the area were built after the year 2000, including 14 per cent that were built after 2011.
“This is a new suburb,” Wees said. “And while it’s true there’s a lot of lawns, large trees have a much bigger impact on the climate than lawns do.”
Saint-Amable, Que., east of Montreal, is enforcing a longstanding rule that properties must have at least one deciduous tree in their yard as a way to help mitigate the impact of heat islands in the community.
What’s happening, he said, is that all the streets, all the parking and all the roofs on buildings are absorbing solar radiation during the day and re-radiating it out at night so the air heats up.
Trees help reduce air temperature by providing shade and evaporating water, but that’s not all they do.
Trees, Wees said, have other benefits such as reducing wind speed, absorbing certain air pollutants and capturing rainwater.
“So every time it rains, instead of all that rain going into the sewage, storm sewers or flooding people’s homes, the trees absorb large portions of it,” he said.
Tree tax ‘makes sense’
In the context of encouraging people to plant more trees on their properties, Wees said Saint-Amable’s approach is a good one and will make a difference in the long run.
“It definitely makes sense,’ he said. “It’s less punitive than giving out fines for people who don’t plant trees.”
Ménard said, however, the main impetus for the tax was to speed up the greening process.
“We need to double our canopy.” he said, “We have a lot of catching up to do.”
While Ménard said the one-tree rule isn’t new, it was never really observed or enforced before.
Villeray–Saint-Michel–Parc-Extension residents will be able to submit projects to replace concrete in their neighbourhood with green spaces. Borough mayor Laurence Lavigne Lalonde says the ‘Bye Bye Béton’ initiative is part of the solution to combat heat islands, deal with heavy rain and recover biodiversity loss.
Using a more traditional approach to get people to comply, he added, would have required inspectors to go out into the field, write notices, issue fines and “then you often find yourself in court,” Ménard said. “it’s a long process.”
Instead, the town teamed up with mapping service Jakarto and used artificial intelligence, sending out tiny vehicles equipped with cameras to go up and down neighbourhood streets to detect the presence of trees.
That was done in 2024 with notices sent out to about 1,200 properties that were found to be non-compliant. Of those, 800 took the necessary steps to plant a tree, Ménard said.
The plan is to send out the vehicles again this spring
Growing pains
While Ménard is touting the success of the initiative, there have been some issues with its implementation.
Caroline Skucas said she was a bit confused when she received a notice from the town saying she wasn’t in compliance with the rules.
“There wasn’t really room to negotiate. We have like a huge tree in the front and they’re like, ‘Oh it has to be in the back,'” she said.
Skucas ended up planting two apple trees, but said she felt it was an imposition.
She said there’s not much space in her backyard, and with the large tree in the front and a cedar hedge around the property, she wouldn’t have chosen to add more trees.
Ménard clarified that in certain cases, like when a home is located on a street corner, there will be tree requirements for parts of the yard facing the public street — even if it’s in the back.
The type of tree people plant is also important, with Ménard specifying that shrubs don’t qualify as trees.
Wees agreed it made sense.
“If your main goal is to reduce the heat-island effect, the bigger the better,” he said. “More leaves, more shade, and so on and so forth.”
Despite some bumps in the road, Ménard said he’s confident that by the end of the year, all remaining properties will be tree compliant.
He added the municipality is also doing its part by planting 12,000 trees on public land.
