Opinion: A current prosecution in Papakura illustrates how simply Auckland’s city timber could be misplaced.
In 2024, a developer eliminated two mature avenue timber – photinias estimated to be round 60 years previous – after being informed by Auckland Council that the timber weren’t protected. The timber have been later discovered to be on council land, and the developer was prosecuted.
The incident highlights a number of systemic issues in how timber are managed and guarded within the metropolis.
First, the timber have been positioned on council property. A regular web site survey, usually undertaken as a part of improvement due diligence, would have clearly proven their place.
As an alternative, the developer relied on a telephone enquiry to council. The council planner in flip relied on the council’s GIS mapping system or aerial imagery, which doesn’t precisely report particular person tree areas.
Council employees shouldn’t rely solely on these instruments when offering recommendation of this type. A developer ought to as a substitute have been directed to acquire a web site survey to substantiate the precise place of the timber.
The incident additionally highlights one other rising problem: the deregulation of the arboriculture business. Tree elimination is more and more carried out by contractors with little or no formal arboricultural coaching. In lots of instances these operators act merely as ‘employed chainsaws’, endeavor elimination work with out contemplating different administration choices, or offering skilled recommendation.
Because the Nationwide-Act authorities eliminated councils’ means to set common tree safety guidelines in city areas in 2012, Auckland’s city forest has been steadily disappearing.
The results have been dramatic. Because the elimination of common protections, it’s estimated that greater than 270,000 giant timber on non-public property in Auckland have been reduce down as of 2021. In some suburbs, Auckland Council surveys have proven that over 60 % of the city forest has disappeared.
In the present day, the first planning software obtainable to guard important timber is Schedule 10 of the Auckland Unitary Plan, often known as the Notable Tree Schedule. This schedule identifies particular person timber or teams of timber which are thought of distinctive primarily based on strict standards reminiscent of heritage worth, panorama significance, rarity, ecological significance, or excellent measurement and age.
The Notable Tree Schedule was by no means meant to supply safety to giant numbers of timber throughout the area, it was created to seize a really small variety of distinctive timber. It can’t exchange common tree safety and received’t present safety for Auckland’s exceptional city forest.
In principle, Schedule 10 ought to present sturdy safety for the roughly 7000 excellent timber or teams of timber. As soon as a tree is listed, eradicating or considerably altering it requires useful resource consent and robust justification.
In observe, nonetheless, the system is failing.
Auckland Council has not added a single new tree to the Notable Tree Schedule since 2015, regardless of a whole bunch of nominations. In 2021, the environmental advocacy group The Tree Council was compelled to hunt a judicial evaluate to compel the council to evaluate a whole bunch of nominated timber that had been awaiting consideration.
The council started work on Plan Change 113, which was meant so as to add many of those timber to the schedule. Nonetheless, underneath stress from central authorities signalling additional reform of planning legal guidelines, the plan change was withdrawn. Because of this, the backlog stays unresolved and Auckland continues to lose timber which may in any other case qualify for cover.
Essentially the most seen consequence of this regulatory vacuum is the elimination of enormous mature timber that will have been protected earlier than 2012. To make issues worse, beforehand if a major tree was nominated for scheduling, it will have been protected underneath the final tree safety guidelines. Because the elimination of those guidelines, a tree can now be eliminated with out consent if it has been nominated however not but assessed and probably scheduled.
One hanging instance was a big pōhutukawa on Khyber Go Highway, with a cover spanning roughly 20m. The tree clearly met the standards for scheduling, but it had by no means been recognized by council and was eliminated by a developer. Previous to the legislative modifications, it will have been protected via district plan guidelines requiring evaluation earlier than elimination.
Administrative failures have additionally performed a task. A mature pōhutukawa in Mt Eden was mistakenly omitted from the notable tree register through the transition from the previous district plans to the Auckland Unitary Plan. Solely authorized motion and an interim injunction introduced by The Tree Council compelled the council to reinstate the safety that the tree had beforehand held.
Even when timber are formally protected or substitute planting is required via useful resource consents, follow-through has typically been weak.
In a single case, Auckland Council consented to the elimination of a giant scheduled melia tree in 2006 on the situation that a number of substitute timber be planted, together with one 6m tall on the time of planting and all to be “maintained thereafter”. In the present day these substitute timber have both died or been closely clipped into hedge-like varieties, diminishing their ecological and visible worth. The episode highlights a persistent problem: situations are imposed, however monitoring and enforcement are sometimes absent.
Public tensions round tree elimination reached a peak in 2019 with the 245-day Canal Highway protest in Avondale, the place residents opposed a developer’s proposal to take away 52 mature native timber on non-public land. The protest resulted in arrests and a major police presence, but finally the timber have been eliminated. The location, as soon as a uncommon pocket of mature inexperienced house in a quickly intensifying suburb, was misplaced.
Extra lately, the remedy of timber planted as a part of the 2011 Eden Park redevelopment illustrates one other hole between coverage and observe. Pōhutukawa and titoki timber planted all through the positioning as consent situations have been crudely ‘topped’, destroying their pure type and decreasing their shade and amenity worth. The dearth of acknowledgement from these accountable highlights how poorly understood good arboricultural administration stays, even the place timber have been required via the planning course of.
These examples illustrate a broader downside: the system designed to guard city timber is simply as efficient as its implementation.
The irony is that the advantages of mature city timber are effectively documented. Bigger timber present the best ecosystem companies: they retailer carbon, average excessive warmth, scale back stormwater runoff, enhance air high quality and supply shade and habitat. Additionally they contribute considerably to human wellbeing, with quite a few research linking entry to inexperienced areas and mature timber to improved psychological well being.
But New Zealand continues to deal with city timber as expendable.
Different main cities have taken a really totally different method. Brisbane has roughly 44 % cover cowl. Melbourne presently sits round 22 % and has set a goal of 40 % by 2040. New York Metropolis has about 21 % cover cowl, whereas London has round 21 % with a goal of 31 % by 2050. Auckland’s cover cowl sits at round 18 % and declining.
These cities recognise that city forests are important infrastructure. They map their timber, actively monitor cover protection and embed tree safety into planning techniques.
New Zealand’s coverage course has as a substitute prioritised eradicating regulatory limitations to improvement. Successive governments have been reluctant to revive councils’ means to use common tree protections, fearing this would possibly gradual housing provide.
On the identical time, proposed replacements for the Useful resource Administration Act might enable landowners to hunt compensation if planning guidelines prohibit the usage of their land. This might make councils much more cautious about imposing tree safety measures.
The result’s a planning atmosphere the place mature timber on non-public land are more and more susceptible.
If we wish greener, more healthy cities, this method wants to vary.
Councils ought to proactively establish and schedule important timber earlier than improvement stress reaches them and use no matter regulatory instruments can be found to them to guard these timber.
Growing a second tier to the prevailing schedule would establish and defend extra timber of a youthful age guaranteeing the longer-term survival of our city forest. Schedule 10 must be recurrently up to date reasonably than allowed to stagnate for practically a decade, and useful resource consent situations referring to timber should even be actively monitored and enforced.
There are additionally sensible alternatives to enhance city greening. Slightly than focusing solely on giant specimen-planting programmes that require costly aftercare, councils may plant higher numbers of smaller grade timber that set up extra efficiently. On the identical time, planners and designers ought to establish the restricted city areas the place giant cover timber can develop to maturity and defend these alternatives.
Group teams even have an important function. Throughout Auckland, volunteer organisations already plant and preserve hundreds of timber yearly. Supporting these initiatives – via partnerships, funding and technical steerage – would assist increase the city ngahere whereas strengthening group connections to native inexperienced areas.
Cities world wide display that it’s doable to accommodate progress whereas sustaining a thriving city forest.
Auckland can do the identical – however provided that we begin treating mature timber as property value defending reasonably than obstacles to improvement.
