Park trees chopped for parking lot
“NO person shall act in a way that will cause damage to the park or is likely to injure, endanger, obstruct, inconvenience or annoy any person.” So says Rule Number 1 on a Gipps Street Council sign next to Victoria Park ovals No.2 and 3 where, until a week ago, 14 mature trees provided a broad canopy of shade for sporting participants, spectators and the use of the general public.
Members of the SOS Trees Dubbo group are also community representatives on the Street Tree Advisory Committee (STAC) and are gobsmacked by the trees’ removal.
“We’ve got this vision that we want to create canopy cover for Dubbo,” Mark Gardner, one of the group, said.
“Dubbo is at about 8 per cent and most other councils are at 20 per cent plus, so we have a long way to go. We’re far behind, and we want to create a plan for canopy cover and involve people and attract funding and do all those things, and here we are looking at stumps,” he said.
“NO person shall act in a way that will cause damage to the park or is likely to injure, endanger, obstruct, inconvenience or annoy any person.”
So says Rule Number 1 on a Gipps Street Council sign next to Victoria Park ovals No.2 and 3 where, until a week ago, 14 mature trees provided a broad canopy of shade for sporting participants, spectators and the use of the general public.
“We play cricket in the summertime,” one parent watching rugby training at No.2 last week told Dubbo Photo News.
“Cricket matches go all day. We used to park our cars here, under the shade. They’ll be sorely missed,” he said.
Members of the SOS Trees Dubbo (SOS) Facebook page are also community representatives on the Street Tree Advisory Committee (STAC) and are gobsmacked by the trees' removal.
“The Street Tree committee has had two meetings since we’ve come on board and nothing was brought before the meetings about this. I think their attitude was 'well this is done and dusted, it’s been signed off way before this committee was formed', but that’s not the point,” STAC and SOS member Belinda Edmondson said.
“I think they knew too, that all hell would break loose,” STAC and SOS member Narelle Grant added.
“Obviously we’re going to say at the next meeting we need forewarning of any future projects involving the trees so we can then obviously inform the public a lot better than what they’re doing,” Ms Edmondson said.
Dubbo Regional Council director Community and Recreation Murray Wood acknowledges emotions over the tree removal are high.
“Yes, it’s emotional at the time. It is a construction site at the moment but in 10 years' time we’ll have pine trees in the middle of the car park, like the Rotary anniversary pine trees near the cenotaph and bigger broad dome trees as well,” he told Dubbo Photo News.
Mr Wood supplied Dubbo Photo News with a map of the car park construction site showing where new trees will be planted.
“Where we can, we’re putting broader deciduous trees in the car park,” he said.
“We’re building a car park on mature trees which are towards the end of their life. You’re going to design a car park around them and they’re going to die, and then you’re going to have to start again anyway,” he said.
Resident and former council employee Kerry Randell says she’s heard it all before.
“Planting offset is baloney. You can’t remove habitat, mature, aesthetic trees which are providing amenity. It’s an epic fail, fail, fail,” Kerry said.
“There needs to be respect for the shade and the amenity. This is just like in Dubbo streets where if one side of a street needs pipes and the trees have to go, there’s wholesale removal on both sides.”
A day before the tree removal was completed, Council issued a statement saying an independent arborist’s 2012 audit had found seven of the trees in question had a useful life expectancy of five to 15 years, which today would be closer to between three and nine years.
“One of the Kurrajongs in the carpark area that had been assessed previously as having a longer useful life expectancy was removed earlier this year following storm damage,” Mr Wood said.
“Upon inspection the tree had decay and structural issues indicating a shorter life expectancy than previously assessed. While Council recognises that there will be a loss of amenity and shade for a short period of time, the replacement trees that Council will be replanting will have a life expectancy of close to 100 years,” he said.
Not against progress, the Street Tree Advisory Committee community members want better consultancy.
“What we’re on about is greater transparency. These decisions are being made and no-one knows. We’re not hearing about them and these are community assets and the community is very angry about the loss of their assets,” STAC and SOS member Mark Gardner said.
“These trees have provided facility for families, for kids, for people. They created ambience looking across from the Outlook Café, (but now the view is of) the industrial area on the railway line because of course the trees on Talbragar Street have also been removed.
“If we don’t start to make a stand, we’re going to end up as a concrete jungle in one of the hottest regional cities in Australia, and whichever way you look at it, it makes no sense,” he said.
Mr Wood explained Council is “rebooting” their master plans in the wake of changes brought by amalgamation, plus money received through amalgamation and grants such as the Stronger Communities Fund.
“We didn’t realise that this pulse of activity was going to come, with the merger, and the merger money, and then Stronger Communities Fund money. It didn’t happen in my living memory of working in community areas, that we’ve got all this money to achieve so much on our master plans.
“Say for Victoria Park in 2009, there was a lot of consultation out there for people to make comments; and a lot of people don’t comment, a lot of people do,” Mr Wood said.
“You can’t wait for a grant to come along then do the master plan. It’s a weird term but these projects have to be ‘shovel ready’.
“Barden Park helped the sporting clubs to understand master planning. The master plan got us the money for Barden Park, and then we could do a detailed design. When you get the grant, you’re thinking, right it’s real. You don’t want to spend $200,000 on a detailed design if it’s a pipe dream.
“You do spend $50,000 on a business case and a master plan to get ready. I think sporting clubs that have been exposed to it, understand it a bit better, whereas parks; no-one sort of feels like they own it, until you chop down trees.
“I like trees. I’ve cut them down, I’m an ex-arborist, but it’s about creating public spaces so we’re certainly very conscious. The pool carpark was one where we did cut down four big trees, and there was a bit of blowback at the time, but now the biggest complaint is we don’t have a big enough car park for the pool.”
The official line from Council however is not sitting well with SOS Trees Dubbo members.
“We should be planting more trees and looking after them, not pulling them down, particularly ones like these which are over 50 years old, and these trees were healthy, there was nothing wrong with them,” Mark Gardner said.
“I assumed they were dangerous,” said the parent watching training. “Unless they had good reason to get rid of them there’s not much shade around there.
"We’re very big on ‘and’... we could have had a car park, and, trees. Other places do that,” he said.
“Another thing that worries us is that Council has this idea they’ve got to raise everything to the ground and start with a clean slate, rather than putting a value on what we already have.
“Sydney City Councils actually put a value per tree, and it’s something like $15,000 a year on what each tree provides. Our council doesn’t consider trees as an asset at all,” Belinda Edmondson said.
“It’s not like we’re saying we don’t want development; we want
development that is positive for Dubbo, and this is not a positive development for Dubbo, by any means,” Mr Gardner added.
Council will be planting four super-advanced Hoop Pines to finalise the avenue between Bligh Street and Fitzroy Street.
Twenty-two Sawtooth Oak trees which grow to a height of 20 metres with a similar spread of canopy will be planted around Victoria Park No.2 oval and adjacent to the carpark to provide additional shade.
“It doesn’t mean we’ll get 20 metres,” STAC and SOS member Narelle Grant said.
“It’s going to take 20 or more years to get back what’s just been cut down. It’ll be 20 years before they provide a function,” Ms Edmondson said.
“I won’t be able to enjoy them in my lifetime,” Kerry Randell said.
All major sporting stakeholders were present at a meeting of the Victoria Park Redevelopment Advisory Committee and all parties endorsed the design and works including the construction of the car park between Victoria Park 2 and 3 ovals. The Street Tree Advisory Committee are not included in the consultation.
“A lot of people still don’t know about it. There’s a lady who lives near here who didn’t know the trees would be cut down. She often brought her grandchildren here in a stroller to wheel them around under the shade. Not anymore,” Ms Edmondson said.
The committee is concerned about projects which received submissions years ago, such as the Victoria Park Master Plan which was drafted in 2011.
“People just forget. How many of these legacy projects are there just on the shelf that this is going to happen to. Disclosure and transparency is really important because it builds trust,” Mr Gardner said.
“We don’t want to be putting our time into this. We want to be putting our time into planting and getting people on board for planning and getting grants. We’ve got this vision that we want to create canopy cover for Dubbo.
“Dubbo is at about 8 per cent and most other councils are at 20 per cent plus, so we have a long way to go. We’re far behind, and we want to create a plan for canopy cover and involve people and attract funding and do all those things, and here we are looking at stumps,” he said.
The estimated cost for the carpark and lighting is $470,000. Design costs were provided by the Council’s internal works branch a year before the Stronger Communities Fund Tied Grant announcement.
“The Victoria Park Redevelopment Advisory Committee recommended the option that required an additional $500,000 expenditure and that was subsequently endorsed by Council,” Mr Wood said.
“The extra funds are targeted at an increase in change rooms and female amenities at Victoria Park No.1 Oval to meet increasing demand arising from increased female participation in rugby, rugby league, league tag and cricket.
“Council’s Infrastructure Delivery Branch is constructing the car park and the operations branch of the Community and Recreation Division shall be completing the landscaping and tree planting,” he said.
The new car park will be asphalt sealed and consist of 70 car spaces, including two dedicated disabled spaces and one bike rack.
The Master Plan identified a community need for safe, offstreet parking which would improve the appeal and access to the sporting precinct.
“Council’s plan is to create a new accessible car park with appropriate planting and offset planting around the ovals to improve the overall amenity and use of the precinct,” Mr Wood said.
The 2016 plan for the car park includes structural soils which enable large enough soil volume underground with airspaces as well as soil improvements such as biochar.
“The Araucarias shall be planted down the middle with one either side of the driveway entrance. The remaining spaces will be Quercus acutissima, a broad canopy deciduous tree, enabling solar access in winter and shade in summer when mature,” Mr Wood said.
But that's not good enough, according to SOS Trees Dubbo group members.
“The trees that were here could actually shade the cars, now there’s a unique concept,” Mark Gardner said.