When we initially hired an Arborist to come look at our neighbour’s trees, it was with the intent of developing a protection plan for them. Unfortunately, his inspection found that primary tree that we needed to protect is probably not worth saving. It has developed a split down the middle that will eventually lead to the tree falling down in a future wind storm. As such he thought we should investigate removing the tree now, and felt the city inspector would certainly agree with his assessment if we decided to go that way.

We discussed the matter with our neighbours and offered to either protect the tree (which involves changes to the architectural plans and a specialized building structure) or remove the tree. Since there would be costs involved to preserve the tree, we also offered to cover the costs remove it; whichever they wished. They had a near-miss with a tree that fell just a few feet away from their house a few years earlier, and so agreed that the safer course of action would be to remove the tree now. (The split in the tree aims one of the two major branches towards the house.)
Even in a case where the city will clearly agree with the Arborist’s assessment, there is still quite a bit of paperwork to be done. We must apply to the city for its removal, and since it is not our tree, our neighbour had to sign a city form authorizing our Arborist to act on their behalf.

The costs to us for removing the tree include a fee of $100 per tree (just one in this case) to make the application to the city, and $550-750 (est.) to have a company come in and professionally/safely remove the tree.