Big Tree losses
Phone 07 3371 9355 or Email
18 September 2003
This morning I was phoned by a young friend who owns a very nice large oldish house on a largish and expensive block of land to be told that the site across the road had the big "cherry picker" in place and the large trees were being removed.
We could hear the chainsaw while we were having breakfast ... always a great way to enjoy breakfast in the quiet security of the suburbs!
So I was not surprised to receive a call. It was 6.45am ...!
As I understand it, 6.45am is 15 minutes BEFORE work on building sites is "allowed" to start ... but since nobody enforces the rule, the builders ignore it.
My friend was concerned for several reasons, not the least, that the trees are part of the larger suburban and indeed Brisbane landscape or "fabric" to use planner jargon....!
Well that used to be the case... before BCC implemented and promoted the small lot housing concept..!
Who remembers the "sardine city" Council campaign which if I recall correctly, was Jim Soorley's first re-election.
Like so many other "ideas" not adequately tested, the small lot housing concept sounded like a good idea as an alternative to the "six packs" it was said without any evidence, ... and despite the warnings (many still being sounded without success), BCC threw out the previous medium density housing forms and replaced them with small lot housing.
The result is obvious ... no space for big trees.
So my friend had called the BCC and an officer duly turned up ... and of course, he approved the removal of the trees because the approval permit and process allows the removal of the trees.
The problem here is that BCC does not necessarily ever see the actual building approval, and because it does not insist on detailed planning layouts at the subdivision application stage (which would effectively constrain the speculative aspect which provides so much profit and incentive for the developers), Council cannot therefore set precise conditions.
Rather it uses conditions such as "trees to remain where practical" or words of similar weakness. And who is the final arbitrator? The developer or his private certifier!
The problem, and the one facing my friend, is that developers have now started to make huge offers to other nearby properties ... and my friend has ABSOLUTELY NO SAY ... despite the politically appealing "Your City, Your Say!" in what hapens to his locality .. and mine!.
The developers and NOT Council, now decide the urban fabric, amenity and character of our suburbs ... residents have NO say and Council now has little "say" either ... and where it does, it is reluctant ... the developers might complain...!
Unless we work together ... not with Council, but against the current developers when they first turn up in your street ... or nearby, this will continue ...!
The history shows the developers pick out a few strategically located sites, preferably with "good neighbours", then move on somewhere else, then return, do a few more!
The remaining trees and amenity rely on those whose sites have NOT been developed ... yet the neighbours suffer the stresses and threats, indeed the possible loss of value of their property ... but have NO "say"...!
The attached photos show a short section of a typical situation but could be anywhere and everywhere ... remove a character house here, take a cluster of trees and old shrubbery there, a big tree somewhere else and only when only a couple of symbolic examples remain, does the "obvious" change become obvious ...
BCC's redevelopment plans represent a creeping, insidious and incremental process ... reliant on "borrowed amenity" ... usually yours with all the privacy and other problems of poorly considered and uncoordinated redevelopment...
Tree and character protection are nothing but empty rhetoric of BCC.. like residents having "a say"....!
The photos are in fact from Macdonnell Street Toowong.
Top shows that the entire site, trees and all is stripped bare. The trees in the background are the neighbours'. When the neighbour develops, there is no space for the trees ... they all go ... none remain...!
Bottom shows a completed development, almost totally covered in paving and buildings ... no space for trees. Again the trees are in the neighbours' site(s).
We need a group to focus in on the removal of trees and most importantly, who decides whether or not they can be removed. At present, that is not a Council decision, it is at the discretion of the developer. It cannot easily be appealed because the decision is one taken by a private agent. It would appear to require civil law action... potentially very expensive!
The best option therefore is a campaign to ensure that ...
1. Council requires a detailed building proposal as part of the small lot subdivision approval so that issues such as tree protection can be made conditions ... indeed, there seems to be an increasing number of incomplete houses being occupied which would not have been permitted some years ago so completion should also be a condition otherwise the local amenity can too easily be eroded (with the property values) by "permanent" building sites ....
2. Council requires applicants for small lot housing to obtain signed statements of agreement for all subdivision applications .. in some places, local residents will want to have their suburb redeveloped and will agree, others clearly will not.
3. Council promotes the value of trees in the urban landscape (rather than approving a series of leafy twigs on the footpath after redevelopment has removed all the big ones) and by a community process, identifies those of substantive character so developers (and purchasers) are aware in advance of likely community refusal to allow removal.
4. A similar process for identifying "character" houses ...
If anyone knows who is involved in or if there is a group being developed to address these or similar aims, please do NOT keep it a secret ... let us all know ... the trees are going into the chipper as I complete this appeal ... and the character houses are being removed almost as often
Michael Yeates
