Penrith City Council - Tress Preservation Order

Busy

Hi all,

I have a large gum tree, in fact, it's huge, approx 200year old however it is about 3.5m from the room I am currently in which is out study. The massive branches hang completly over our 3 bedroom house. Honestly, the trunk is the size of a small car and the tree has 6 thick branches that themselves could be there own decent size tree. We have a baby girl and as I'm sure you can understand, this tree scares the hell out of us. The tree runs through the border of our neighbours to the right and there are 4 houses including ours, that have branches hanging over their roofs and we are on the biggest block of 500sqm.

We live in the Penrith area and when we purchased this property in 2008, we submitted an application to have the tree removed. This application was refused.

We are thinking about submitting another application and I am wondering what act/section the decision is made by council to decline the application.

Thanks in advance

Busy

Also, does anyone have a link of the recent Coronial Enquiry in Victoria
regarding the terrible Bushfires in 2008 with regards to Councils refusing
to accept homeowners from removing trees/after submitting applicants to
do so/ and that impact on bushfire safety.

& too - Can I have someone with a bushfire background, expert or RFS officer cometo my house with a view of fire safety with regards to this tree?

Thanks

Drouin Tree Service

Pictures please

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Drouin Tree Services | Excavator Hire - Drouin and SE Gippsland | Landclearing Melbourne

kaazih

I'd love to see some pictures of the tree.

Have you had the tree pruned before? You should at least be able to prune 10-20% to reduce/remove the branches over your house.

How many other trees do you have around the house? Remember the tree will be providing considerable shade in that hot Penrith summer.

Eric Frei

Seems for that council trees over 0.3m Dia at 0.4m above ground are protected.

Penrith, NSW Australia

You need to fill out an application along with fee and ask.

They may allow some pruning etc.

You may even get your own arborist to assess but if the the tree is healthy, structurally sound etc there's little he can do.

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Busy

We were told only 10 per cent could be pruned, but given the size of it, I thought it was more concerning if something was pruned from down the bottom of the tree and a large branch broke at the top, then there would be nothing to slow the top branch down.

We have plenty of garden/trees at our house but i honestly dont think the tree would help that much when it's hot out here, cause it gets bad as it is even with the tree.

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Eric Frei

You should hire a good arborist to inspect that tree close up.

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Steve Tipton

If your consulting arborist condemns the tree, you can apply to the Land and Environment Court to review the council's decision.
I believe such an application costs $180.00.

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Heightmaster

Busy

This we sound stupid and negligent of me - But what does an Aborist report
detail?

Eric Frei

This is where it can be tricky you see.

Arborists make assessments of the tree, inspect it for faults, anomalies, health, vigour, vitality, decay, disease etc.

There's consideration to be placed on longevity, future issues etc.

The problem is when people ring me and there is nothing wrong but they want the tree gone. It still costs me time and money to go and have a look so a call out fee has to be paid.

Basically if there is nothing wrong then there's nothing to write.

Some arborists (tree hugger types) will continue though and write a report about it's grandeur, it's ecological value, it's cultural and heritage value, even work out a dollar value etc then go further to write a script for ongoing care. I rarely do that unless of course you want that.

So you need to be completely honest and explicit when you ring and book an arborist.

I explain this to people carefully that if I arrive and look the tree over and in 10 minutes know I could not write a report to get rid of it then I collect my call out fee and leave, I hope you understand this as we cannot run a business well by driving around looking at trees for free.

Sometimes there may be small defects which can be mitigated. An arborist report needs to look at management options, for instance pruning or cabling instead of cutting the whole tree down. I usually do that verbally as there is no need to pump up costs to the client with a written report. I point out what has to be done and why knowing the issue is not significant enough to warrant tree removal. So again, my time has to be paid for.

If you ring me and ask for me to come and check out your tree then give you a free quote for what has to be done I regard that as a consultation and establish that up front. Some people get shitty about it wanting advice for free but they get what they pay for from some tree lopper.

I hope that helps, you need a neutral (neither tree hugger or tree hater) experienced arborist to assess the tree ... pay for his time and ask many questions.

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Steve Tipton

In addition to Eric's comments regarding the content of an Arborist report, an arborist can also provide an educated opinion of any damage that may have been caused by the tree, or could reasonably be expected to be caused.

For example, cracks or displacement of concrete or brickwork caused by root growth, conflict of extended canopy growth with roofs or overhead wiring etc.
Of course, some of these problems may be mitigated by directional or root pruning, but not always.

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Heightmaster