Tree war erupts in Springs
Council sharpens axe without waiting for planning commission decision on pines
Tree wars have erupted in Auckland’s Western Springs as residents accuse Auckland Council of flouting its own resource consent process. Planning commissioners have asked the council to answer questions by this Friday about its application to clearfell all 200 remaining pine trees in a 3.2ha block behind the Western Springs lake, below West View Rd in Grey Lynn.
But the council has asked West View Rd residents to evacuate their homes from tomorrow so that 13 pines considered to be at immediate risk of falling can be chopped down.
Residents in the three closest houses have been told they can return to their homes at night but need to stay away while the trees are felled between 7.30am and 4.30pm from tomorrow until Friday.
The council says the 13 trees will be removed “under the emergency provision of the unitary plan”.
Lawyer Deborah Manning, who lives in one of the three houses, said the decision to cut down the 13 trees in the week when the council is due to reply to the commissioners’ questions was an “abuse” of the resource consent process.
“We just seem to have Auckland Council behaving in a very highhanded manner,” she said.
The decision to move quickly on the 13 trees has highlighted the major change involved if the council wins consent to clearfell all 200 pine trees.
It says in its application that the pine trees were planted in the 1920s and are reaching the end of their lives.
About 300 pines have already been removed or died in the past 20 years, and 62 per cent of the remaining 200 “are either dead, have heavily reduced canopies, have sustained damage by fire or are visually displaying poor health”.
The remaining forest has been closed to the public because of the danger of more trees falling down,
Until now dead and dying trees have been cut down bit by bit and mostly left on site.
But the council says the remaining trees are now too weak for arborists
We just seem to have Auckland Council behaving in a very highhanded manner.
Deborah Manning
to climb safely to cut them individually, so the only option is to clearfell the whole forest in a two-month operation planned for March and April.
The application includes an 8m-wide access road from the bottom of the site near the lake, a 40m-wide processing area and a 20m-wide landing area.
The site will be replanted in native trees. But in the short term, an ecological report says the clearfelling “will result in the damage and destruction of most indigenous vegetation in the sub-canopy and understorey” under the thinning pine forest.
The independent commissioners, who heard evidence last month, have asked the council to explain by this Friday whether there were any other options for removing the pines and protecting the forest, designated a Significant Ecological Area.
Grey Lynn resident Wendy Gray has gathered 755 signatures on a petition asking the council to drop the clearfelling and to manage the forest by “surgical removal of only trees predisposed to failure”.
However Waitemata¯ Local Board chairwoman Pippa Coom said the council had budgeted to replant 15,000 native trees as soon as the pine trees are removed.
“We want it to be amazing regenerating bush with great tracks through there and bring back the birds,” she said.
She said a West View Rd resident had asked the council to remove a dead pine tree which threatened to fall on their house, and the experts decided to cut down 12 other nearby trees at the same time this week.
“I don’t think waiting another month [for the resource consent] would be good,” she said. “If council is aware of a serious risk, to not act would not be good practice.”