At the Special Meeting of Council on 18 April, I successfully moved a motion to include a trial of Significant Tree Grants in the proposed operating budget for 2017-18. Here's a bit of what I said: The purpose of this program is to trial and evaluate a
grant program that supports the maintenance of significant trees located on private land. Large trees across
our City are under threat due to the ongoing pressures of urban in-fill
development, and the increasing costs of maintaining them. Recent planning
changes have further threatened tree sustainability in urban areas, where now
most species within 10 metres of a dwelling or swimming pool can be removed
without planning consent despite their size and importance. Often the cost of
maintaining these trees is out of the reach of local land owners due to the
size of the trees and the need to employ professionals with the required
equipment and skills to complete the work.
As such, many of these trees are not maintained and risk dying. Importantly, staff informed
me that we are not utilising the Urban Tree Fund which currently has an
un-allocated balance of $9,000 – and that this trial grant program would be a
perfect fit for use of these funds, meaning that the total cost of the trial
would only be a net $1,000. In addition, there has been no
audit of significant trees in our city.
This trial program will give us some indication of where these trees are,
and landholder interest in their maintenance. I believe a program like this is
urgent and important, so that we can
preserve as many significant trees as possible in this climate of 'development at all costs'. These trees
are too important to our community to lose, and the longer we sit on our hands,
the greater the risk of losing them. |
My voting record >