York Street Tree
You remember this one? The street tree that was damaged by developers? Back story here: http://ballarateast.online/did-you-see/ and here: http://ballarateast.online/york-st-tree/
A call from council to update our reporting of this. Council investigated, sent a council arborist to tend to the tree.
It appears the person who damaged the tree said it was accidental and was a contractor (not the developer), so council have invoiced them for the work of the council arborist and costs. No fine! However council did say they are working hard to educate developers about protecting public trees and property.
Its hard to be be jaded by this no fine situation. Developers don’t appear to learn until it hits their wallets! Stay vigilant folks.
And remember to let developers know you know, you know!
Tags:damage
The best suggestion I’ve seen for dealing with rogue developers who damage or remove protected and public trees is to require them to replace the lost tree with another of the same species and size. At the same time suspend any approval the offending company has until that is done and the replacement tree is shown to be thriving. Fines mean nothing to these companies. Making the consequences fit the crime is the only way to curb in the blatant ignoring of protection orders.
I did an arborist report for a client last week and the council placed a bond on both existing trees and those to be planted. While it wasn’t a huge amont of money it’s a great start