A Toronto developer is being accused of chopping down mature trees in the middle of the night, bypassing bylaws meant to protect city greenery, and it’s not the first time they have been accused of skirting the rules.Developer Modcity was accused of cutting down a tree in Toronto’s Leaside neighbourhood without a permit last summer. Now, residents say that the same developer has cut down several more trees at a different property several kilometres away, all under the cover of night.“There were half a dozen trees that were lining the backyard along my property line, and all those were taken down between 11 p.m. and 2 a.m.,” said area resident Jeff Walker.“I just woke up one morning, and I saw these beautiful cedar trees that I’ve been seeing for 35 years gone,” added resident Russell Sutherland.The developer is currently under investigation by the City of Toronto for cutting down trees at three other properties, including one at 712 Eglinton Avenue East, which is now home to a three-storey multiplex. When an 80-year-old Honey Locust tree was chopped down at that address last summer, a Modcity representative claimed there was never a tree at the site to begin with.“That didn’t happen,” the official told CityNews during a phone call. “What tree?”Any tree larger than 30 centimetres in diameter requires a permit to be injured or cut down. One of the neighbours in Leaside says some of the trees that were cut down were over that threshold.“I thought those are some pretty large trees, so I looked over, and I looked up a little bit about the city and its bylaws about tree removal,” explained Sutherland. “I did a bit of measurement, and I thought, yeah, these trees were probably out of order in terms of that they chopped them down.”Cutting down a tree without a permit can result in a fine of up to $100,000, but city officials aren’t able to confirm if Modcity needed a permit because they were chopped down before they could check.“We started to look into it and realized that there had never been an application filed,” said Coun. Rachel Chernos Lin. “And the other piece is that when the developer who owns the house eventually applied to the committee of adjustment, they did it after the trees were gone, so there couldn’t be any conditions related to trees because there were no trees there!”Modcity currently has two zoning applications open at an address on Donlea Drive, and that has raised concerns among some residents.“We understand that they’ve submitted an application to build a fourplex along with a laneway home. We’ve seen one in the area that just towers over the community and is a bit of an eyesore, and they’re looking at zoning exemptions across the board,” said Walker. “So, if they are willing to do that in the middle of the night, my concern living next door is, where else might they try to cut corners?”CityNews reached out to Modcity for comment multiple times and has yet to receive a response.As part of its efforts to improve Toronto’s tree canopy, the city is looking at lowering its 30-centimetre threshold to protect more trees and increasing fines and compensation requirements for illegal removals.