A downtown councillor will introduce a motion at city hall Tuesday that could drastically change the way building permits are issued, in order to protect the city's trees from unscrupulous, unaware or careless builders, CBC Toronto has learned.

Paula Fletcher (Ward 30, Toronto-Danforth) announced her intentions Tuesday after discovering that over the weekend, a large limb had been removed from the 100-year-old silver maple that overhangs a building lot on a residential street near Dundas Street East and Broadview Avenue.

"It's a travesty to look up there and see that big branch having been just sawed off early Saturday morning when there's no oversight," she said.

The tree is at the centre of an ongoing dispute — which CBC Toronto reported on last week — between two homeowners in Fletcher's ward. It sits in Elis Lam's backyard at 150 Hamilton St., but it spreads across the fence onto Cyril Borovsky's yard at 154 Hamilton St., impeding construction of a home there

City Coun. Paula Fletcher and city staff, in a lane way Monday behind 150 Hamilton St., discuss a maple tree that was drastically cut back over the weekend to allow room for construction next door. (Mike Smee/CBC)

After visiting the site Monday afternoon, staffers from the city's urban forestry department issued a stop-work order protecting the tree from further damage, Fletcher said.

Borovsky's efforts to cut back the limbs to make way for his multi-story house have been turned down by city staff on the grounds that the trimming he proposes could kill the tree.

But Borovsky said in a written statement that his own experts have come to a very different conclusion.

"I procured multiple reports from some of the best arborists in Canada confirming that this tree can not only survive the pruning but desperately needs it."

He also says in the statement that the "design of the building takes tree preservation into account. It has a cantilevered portion specifically designed to prevent damage to the root system."

Council to discuss tree this week

Last month, the Toronto- East York community council voted to have city council settle the dispute at its December meeting, which began Tuesday.

However, Fletcher said Monday that under current rules, there may be nothing the city can do to prevent Borovsky from doing what he likes to the tree, because he already has a building permit.

Although the city issues a building permit, the document contains provincial regulations, she said, so it overrides city statutes, like the bylaw that protects trees.

Fletcher will ask council Tuesday to ensure that in the future, the committee of adjustment approves no building application until it has checked to ensure that the plan complies with all city bylaws — like the tree protection bylaw, or the bylaw that prevents people from building parking pads or otherwise infringing on the municipal right-of-way.

Neither Lam nor Borovsky, the two homeowners involved in the dispute, returned calls from CBC Toronto Monday.