any aus workers had council troubles?

[imagineero]

Hi all,
This one one goes out to any aus tree workers (or home owners for that matter!) who have had trouble with council over removed trees. The local Tree Preservation Order in my area specifies no permit required for Radiata pines up to 10m, and for most other species 4m. I often remove pines in the sub 10m category in my area for clients as they are considered a bit of a pest and tend to edge out natives.

A couple of days ago while felling a sub 10m pine for a client the neighbor came over screaming at me about what am I doing etc. I politely told her that the tree was being removed as part of a regeneration plan by the home owner and would be replanted with natives. She accused me of not having a permit and I told her that no permit was required under the local TPO for pines under 10m. She left in a bit of a huff and I continued to drop the tree, limb it and buck it up.

About an hour later the council tree management officer turned up and said he was responding to a complaint. He asked if he could enter the site and inspect the work and I gave consent without the HO being present. I showed him the tree, explained that the HO was replanting and thought that would be that.

He then questioned whether the tree was actually under 10m as it had a pretty thick base. The tree had been about half cut up into foot long sections at this stage. I showed him where the tree had probably split or been topped earlier in life and ended up with a trifurcated trunk. He hesitated after looking at it, then said he would have to measure and document the tree in case the council wanted to make legal proceedings.

At this point he went back to his car for a tape measure, and when he came back I told him I wouldnt be able to give him permission to enter the site without the HO's presence if he was intending to take legal action as I would be possibly jepardising the HO's position and leaving myself open. We had a bit of a heated discussion where he made a few threats about fines and getting myself into hot water by not allowing him to reenter (he admitted that he wasnt allowed to enter without consent).

We ended the discussion with him talking about getting legal advice from councils solicitor and coming back to take action. Has anyone been in this position before? Looking for any and all advice. I didn't measure the tree but estimated the height based on scaling the height of my groundie from a distance. It was borderline, but under. I googled around a bit and found that my local council makes about $100,000 a year off fines for unauthorised tree removal and that when people dispute them the court often backs the council and increases the fines from $hundreds to $thousands and adds court costs.

Thanks,
Shaun

 

[Hddnis]

I'm not down under so I can't offer anything specific to help. Sounds like a bad situation, I hope it all works out well for you.

If you'll all indulge me a soapbox moment here...

This is exactly the kind of thing that is wrong with government bodies regulating tree work. In the end the agencies they create live on any source of revenue they can get, which is often fines. Instead of applying common sense they start looking for any excuse to write out a citation. It is wrong, burdensome, and ends up hurting tree care standards.




Mr. HE

 

[RedlineIt]

I work within restrictive bylaws all the time.

All removal restrictions I meet are DBH. Industry standard, no grey area.

Height, without a surveyors transit is a bit loose.

I can just see a bylaw officer trying to line up firewood in order of drop to get an idea of height, then estimating the top of that.

Good Luck.

RedlineIt

 

[pdqdl]

A protective measure might be to photograph any marginal tree with a visible measure at the base of the tree. Distance from camera should be noted with every picture in order to establish scale and viewing angle.

From that information, you could make a very strong argument that you were within rights to cut it down. That could be very helpful when litigation heads your way.

 

[derwoodii]

Council and State government systems of Vegetation Protection Orders, VPO’s are highly prescriptive, problematic, and expensive to administer methods of regulation. Invariably misunderstood they cause much conflict between Council and residents and now you. theysuck.

Your doin the right thing soxin a flippin juvie Radia pine in the blue mountains is no loss, good call tellin him to sod off with second entry.
PDQLS and Redlines right estimating tree heights a bad law DBH only practical measure. Consider this attachment as a thought primmer unlikely to get up due to a few loose ends but what we got don't work either.

Sadly fightin city hall is a poor game they have all the time in the world to make you suffer and do it with your rate/tax money.

Bat on

 

[ozzy42]

I had a similar problem with a prune on a live oak in the city limits.
I tried to keep the trimming to no more than 25% canopy removal.
The rule here is no more than 1/3.
The problem came with me correcting 4 large previous stub cuts.
The person who inspected the tree made the assumption that those 4 cuts were all long lateral branches ,and that I removed them, in addition to the other trimming.

My defense was as follows during a return phone call to city code office.

Me; Does the tree appear to be lionstailed?[had to explain to her what that meant]
Her;No,it does not.

Me; Do the cuts appear to be stubbed, or flush cut? [had to explain that as well]
Her;No,I don't think so.

Me; Does the tree appear to have a natural canopy?
Her; Yes,but your guys took too much off of the tree.

Me;There is no ''my guys '' ,I did the tree personally.
Her;Then you know how much you took off then?
Me;Yes I do. I took off apr. 25% of the canopy.

Me;Are you aware that the 4 largest cuts you see were corrective cuts from 3ft stubs that were on the tree when I began?
Her; No.
Me; Well,, they were

Me; Do you know what the tree looked like before any work was done ?
Her; No.

Me; Then why are we having this conversation?
Her; Because somebody called and made a complaint.

Me;I have things to do , so cite me if you want. I'll see you in court ,because I will fight it.
Her;We aren't going to cite you, because we have no pics of the tree before pruning,but want you to be aware of our ordinances on tree trimming.

Me;I'm very aware of the city's rules mam.Have a nice day.

 

[pdqdl]

Wow.

I thought Australia was one of the last holdouts in this world for rebels and few regulations. Clearly my mistake! I think I would go nuts if I faced that every day.

On the other hand, you must not have that problem all the time, otherwise you would have already schooled your "inspector".

 

[derwoodii]

Wow.

I thought Australia was one of the last holdouts in this world for rebels and few regulations. Clearly my mistake! I think I would go nuts if I faced that every day.

On the other hand, you must not have that problem all the time, otherwise you would have already schooled your "inspector".

Nup no mad max's here, sadly we have inherited the poor over governance traits of the pommies.
Finding the balance between do as you like and saving urban forest will always be vexed. Blending of US kiwi Canada and OZ ideas in tree protection may work. Or as I hope let the profession do its job to save em when worthy n sox em when not. Sure many may say, uncontrolled and open to poor operators. Hmm yes maybe I dream of a better future with good tree blokes makin good choices. Anyhoo the slowly disappearing bad operators and owners will always be bad and no LG or state tree control gonna do jack. Most tree controls just penalize the good citizen while the bad guys laugh sox n poison n profit away. My last sad case was highly protected trees of great value cut down. The judge could of fined up $120.000 but issued just $2000 & no conviction. The owner in full knowledge of his actions made a profit of $400,000 by selling the now sea views block clear of any tree encumbrances. So he wins the trees loose and the good honest joe public get screwed by a crap system that fails them and the professional tree industry.

 

[derwoodii]

A further thought. I don't reckon those poor sods on Gallipolli or Omaha beach put it on the line so some LG council in 2010 may exercise micro managment democracy to say yay or nay to a flippin 10m pine tree.

Oh yeah but they did die tryin to get to one.

http://www.arboristsite.com/showthread.php?t=134142