by David Clendon
On Sunday I made a brief presentation to the AGM of the Tree Council, appropriately in the very pleasant and leafy surroundings of the education centre at Cornwall Park, Auckland.
The council has a lot on its plate in the coming year, not least of all because general tree protection rules that were typically put in place as a defence against the more rapacious forms of urban development in the 90’s fell victim to the Government’s first round of ‘streamlining’ of the Resource Management Act (RMA).
The reform of the RMA makes it illegal, as of Jan 1st 2012, for councils to use general tree protection rules as a management tool for our urban forest, and means trees on private land may be pruned or cut down with no approval required, unless they are scheduled.
Scheduling individual trees is a time consuming and expensive process, and we need a much more comprehensive set of tools to allow councils and the public to manage and protect trees, which are of course crucial to the city’s amenity, biodiversity, and are an essential part of our ‘green infrastructure’.
The general tree protection regime was imperfect, as acknowledged by the Council, the Arboricultural Association and others, but its removal has left our urban forest hugely exposed to the predations of those who take a very short term view of ‘development’ and could drastically affect the quality of our urban environments.
We are currently waiting for a statutory declaration from the Environment Court’s on the interpretation of the legislation, which was called for by the Waitakere, North Shore and Auckland Regional Councils
The Greens will be doing what we can to support the Tree Council and other groups as they lobby local and central government to take a more intelligent and creative approach to the issue. Watch this space…
Published in Environment & Resource Management by David Clendon on Mon, November 1st, 2010
Tags: auckland governance, David Clendon, Green Party, Resource Management Act, rma, Tree Council
More posts by David Clendon | more about David Clendon
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
Who needs urban forests? Just gives the criminals and greenies something to hide behind. Chop em all down so we can build more highways, jails and Mcd’s. That’s what this country really needs, not stupid native trees. I bet that Kereru taste pretty damn good. How about a Kereru burger from KFC? Flush em all out. Imagine how much money we will make. That’s my justification for everything. I’m evicting that bugger Treebeard as well; he can go suck a kumara… It’s my right to park my SUV wherever I damn well want to… right on top of his friends after doing donuts on the beach and there isn’t nothing you can do about it. Now where’s my coke and cheeseburger?
Like or Dislike:
2 
4 (-2)
Regulating the management of trees on private property can’t be successful. Even ‘significant’ trees will succumb.
The ‘death by a thousand cuts’ rule that mankind operates under will whittle those ‘protected’ trees down to firewood eventually.
Forget the Ents – they’re not going to mobilise and hurl the orcs into a foaming pit of come-uppance. Only the efforts of the little guys, us, will keep trees in the urban landscape. Get planting, get growing, get sowing, mobilise, advertise, reform the thoughts of urbanites, allow more choices, make alternatives available. Be smart. Get going.
Like or Dislike:
3 
1 (+2)
Getting in sync with the local environment and conditions is important and the right tree for the right spot is essential. So many tree misdemeanour’s are due to not understanding these issues.
Trees can serve as the most dramatic and cost effective way to transform a community if done properly. For the cost of a punnet of marigolds you can have a tree that could beautify an area for a century (or more).
I always try and remind people that because trees often live longer than we do, our decisions regarding them will affect generations to come. When it comes to some of our oldest native trees it can take several hundred years to replace them once they are gone.
Like or Dislike:
3 
1 (+2)
I don’t think this protection is needed – I have trees, wouldn’t dream of cutting them down… Trees add value to a property so if someone has to cut one down why shouldn’t they be able to, given the inherent value they’ll surely replace it…
The leafy suburbs in Auckland became leafy well before the RMA…
I’d also stress we need flexibility to absorb the extra 700,000 people coming our way in Auckland to 2050, if trees are not allowed to be cut down for multistory residential buildings there is no way to keep the MULs in place, people simply will not have it… The Greens should think about this implication…
Like or Dislike:
2 
2 (0)
@ Jeremy. You really think that trees are what is stopping/will stop intensive development in Auckland? I think changing our parking regulations would have a much bigger impact…
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)
Lucy, the bigger problem is what I like to call the “old granny dilemma”. To make virtually any intensive housing development in the suburbs viable, you need to have a decent amount of land in which to construct the high density apartments – and that means you need to potentially wait decades before you can acquire all the necessary properties.
It is a different situation where you are allowed to build apartment towers, but they haven’t been built in the suburbs since the 1980s when about half a dozen were built in Herne Bay and Remuera.
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)
Given that Auckland urban area is already the densest urban area in the New World (apart from Los Angeles) why do you want to make it even denser?
Also Auckland land is among the most expensive in the New World (and that includes industrial land and opens space) why do you want to make it more expensive?
And given that medium/high density households have a much larger carbon footprint and energy consumption that low density households why do you want people to live at high densities?
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)
@ Owen. Could you provide references for all of those statements (except the one about the expensive land which I agree with)?
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)
Cos dense is chic Owen – it sells – never forget the driving principle, however insane, is money (and it won’t be denied!).
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)
Lucy,
I think you will all the references for all the statements in this paper I gave at a conference in Houston:
http://www.rmastudies.org.nz/issues/43-smart-growth/142-qpreserving-freedom-and-mobilityq-conferece-2008
If you want to go directly to the data on inner city footprints etc go to Consuming Australia at:
http://www.acfonline.org.au:80/uploads/res/res_atlas_main_findings.pdf
Many studies on these topics are of dreadful quality. One US study simply added up the number of appliances in different housing types and locations. This Australian study is convincing if only because the authors set to prove the conventional wisdom and were genuinely surprised (one might even say Horrified by the reality.)
Note that they are analysing household consumption. All transport accounts for about 10% of the “greenhouse gas pollution” while food accounted for almost 30%. This is why shifts in private transport mode are largely irrelevant to ETS outcomes.
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)
Mark,
Dense is chic?
It has been with speculators, but all around the world the mid-life family prefers low density.
I lived in a downtown apartment as soon as it became legal to do so. Now I live in the countryside. Demographics count.
The story of Halle Neustadt is fascinating. Voted the most sustainable city in the world by a team of Swedish researchers in 1998. Read the story here. http://www.fcpp.org/publication.php/1716
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)
@Lucy, I’ve long advocated the scrapping of all parking regulations… I even asked this question of Brown during the Supercity campaign – he said no, in many, many more words…
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)
Too late for the lovely old Pohutakawa in Taita…..
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)