Associate Professor Joe Hurley of the RMIT Center for Urban Research said that about two-thirds of the losses on residential land were not the result of “capital D development.”
It often happens incrementally. Hurley said residents could cut down a tree to protect their views or build a double garage.
“It’s the yard, it’s the pool, it’s messing up too much, it’s messing up my basics.”
He said all properties should contribute to the wider habitability of the neighborhoods.
“If everyone chooses this and says, ‘Well, it’s my yard, I want to have a new outdoor dining area.’
Whitehorse Council, where deck coverage fell 2.3% in four years, believes one of the sources of the problem is the VicSmart process, which is designed to simplify and speed up small-scale planning permits.
Owners can try to remove a tree through the process, which requires the council to determine applications within 10 business days without announcing the application to neighbors.
Whitehorse Mayor Tina Liu, whose board area is occupied by Blackburn, Burwood, Box Hill and Mont Albert, said the system was open to abuse because owners sometimes made multiple applications instead of ‘remove a single tree as intended by the system.
In one case, six trees were cut down on a property using separate applications.
In the Yarra Ranges, which lost more canopy trees than any other area of local government in Melbourne between 2014 and 2018, and another 25,000 trees in the deadly storms of June last year, the council was unaware of removing multiple trees with the VicSmart system in the past. five years.
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Victorian Greens leader Samantha Ratnam and Sustainable Australia MP Clifford Hayes were alerted to concerns about the VicSmart system at community meetings after a full parliamentary inquiry into the planning system was delayed. .
“Victoria’s planning system is broken in many ways and without a large-scale investigation we won’t even scratch the surface of what needs to be done to fix it,” said Ratnam, who called for full investigation. .
Melbourne’s western suburbs achieved modest 275 acres of tree cover between 2014 and 2018, RMIT found, but improvements were made almost exclusively on public land through campaigns such as Greening the West.
Some western councils have taken strict steps to increase roof coverage. Brimbank requires two-lot subdivisions to have two trees at the front and one at the back of a property.
Hurley said the losses in the canopy trees tend to be the same whether a single house is being rebuilt or replaced with an apartment complex.
“Development is an engine of loss. But it is not as if great development is a great engine of loss. In fact, it is very similar and is making a strategically important contribution to our urban environment, which is the supply of housing, ”he said.
The Department of the Environment, Territory, Water and Planning has approved targets for each Melbourne region of up to 30% coverage coverage by 2050.
A Victorian government spokesman said plans were being made to cultivate urban forests and improve livability “while ensuring future housing growth”.
The Housing Industry Association avoided the targets of the canopy, which it described as aggressive and arbitrary, believing they could undermine its ability to build for a growing population.
Instead, the industry body has called for a no-loss principle for private development, arguing that design plans ensure that most new developments already include adequate vegetation.
Danni Hunter, Victorian executive director of the Property Council, said most developers were aware of creating good amenities.
“It simply came to our notice then. It’s not “more trees, or more houses.”
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