Landmark Tree Felled| Brisbane Council Blunder

Eric Frei

Today a huge gum tree measuring 1.4m DBH, 30m tall and 27.5m wide was felled due to Brisbane City Council (BCC) blunder.

The tree was on a private block of land in a new subdivision and protected by BCC, however the allocated TPZ (also called covenant area) was insufficient. Discussions with BCC indicated that there was no involvement from their in house arborists and the approval was given by ecologists. In BCC the arboricultural decisions at development stage are generally made by ecologists.

Following The Gap storms of 2008 BCC made public announcement about relaxing protection on large trees especially gum trees in close proximity to houses. In this particular case due to anomalies on plans and surveys the approval was given to build half way in on the drip line, so 7m of canopy would be over the roof of a house. The overlap of the tree to the building was minimal when looking at the plans due to the fact that the true tree size was not represented accurately.

In a pruning specification that was permitted prior to the removal permit it was stated that heavy machinery was not to enter beneath the drip line of the tree, however you could build half way under the drip line and cut off all the roots .... a serious blunder. The pruning approval was overwritten to a removal approval.

It is estimated that the tree had a root area of approximately 1000m2.

AS4970 allowed a TPZ of 707m2

The approved covenant allowed 182m2, which equates to an 82% loss of roots for a large mature (approaching over mature) tree. There was evidence of branch breakages in the past predominantly on the SE and SW sides of the tree which coincides with the prevailing winds and storms. The tree was inundated with old deadwood, had no hollows, nests or scratch marks.

Future development would have placed two 2 story houses under the tree canopy both sides as the tree was close to the fence line. Due to funnelling and turbulence above roof height the tree would have been subjected to greater wind forces and both houses on the receiving end of branch breakages.

It would have been far wiser to have located this tree onto a block of it's own as a park rather than jam it onto some-ones house block.

Watch the video and please comment, we consider this a precedent case for others to follow suit against poor council decisions and management. Prior to AS4970 a general rule of thumb was used of 10 x DBH as a TPZ radius, I had personally mentioned this before to BCC ecologists however continuity is a problem in that department.


Trees take years to die, and during that time they become dangerous. I do not need a crystal ball, I just look back at the so called "saved" ones 5 years and 10 years ago.

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Garry Brockley

Thats an incredible mess up for a council to make! 82% loss of required root zone, wow i hope somebodies head rolled for that one. sounds like there is a real need for retraining in that area for the council as a whole.

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Eric Frei

I believe there's perhaps 5 ecologists in that department, not one arborist.

This sort of rubbish has been going on for years, no idea in there.

Here we go, this is pictures taken today. Likely some tree hugger gave themselves a nice big green tick that they saved a tree, more like expedited it's demise.

This tree has a SNV on it, it's at Parkwood estate Heathwood. The estate got carved up maybe 3 or 4 years ago. The house was built 2 years ago.

In series the pictures tell the story, also that's termites in the base of the tree, what a poor specimen anyway to retain, triple leadered from ground E racemosa that close to houses!

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TrevMcRev

When you watch how easy it was tipped over with the machine you can't help but to imagine it retained & root damaged with the whole building process. Then the loads applied to the root plate from the huge canopy.

What would it have taken to tip over the whole thing had the original proposal gone ahead?

It could have taken some time, but it's a real possibility that the councils original plan could have caused such an incident a few years down the track when the house is built.

TREES Ala natural

Why did'nt they just modify the footing types to a 'post type' construction.....

Eric Frei

Building approval was for onground slab. Swimming pool was also on the northern side hard up on the covenant area.

Root severance at the perimeter of the covenant area was permitted.

This was all approved and "in the bag". Based on those conditions, and those conditions being the approved conditions, and the inadequate TPZ the tree was felled. Facts are just that, councils are there to make rules and approvals ..... clearly in this case they stuffed up big time.

There's others though, you know, 600m2 block with 3x25m eucs on it, no room to build but trees are protected .... real bright planning.

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