The proposed control will serve the developers purpose perfectly. THEY will not be constrained as they will be merely get a paid arborists report that no council oficer would dare to negate (or spend our money repudiating). Failing this they will go to VCAT and get what they want. They will also win because the rest of the community will do the work of maintining the remaining leaves under close bureacratic supervision from an even more bloated and officious council.
The developers will also win as the community will again be lulled into a false sense of security (as we see from the letters columns and this discussion) that this regulation will actually affect the real plunderers...
This regulation is designed to make 2030 look more palatable ! There is no consideration of changing the site coverage back to reasonable percentage. There is no consideration of supporting trees with a council blanket cover for tree related damage or injury etc etc..
This proposal is the worst type of bureacracy - pointless, expensive and directed at all when the target should be the few.
Speech by Stephen Digby to Public Hearing by Camberwell Council regarding a proposed "Tree Protection" bylaw - Monday, 28 August 2006
Quick Guide on how to anger residents…..
· Step 1: draft a bylaw that appoints a council officer as arbiter of the aesthetics of our back yards while the council allows hideously inappropriate developments within and creeping out from our commercial zones. They can’t improve the taste of developers but they can supervise yours !
· Step 2: Draft a by-law that requires council officers to maintain registers; inspect pruning and lopping where they feel like it; write notices of instruction; keep records of their decisions
· hold meeting about their decisions (probably with lawyers !). All while council merrily increases our rates. “Public service” starts to stand for an empire of interference by an officious super nanny.
· Step 3: draft a by-law substantially similar to previous proposals that encountered great community opposition. Sir Humphrey Appleby certainly has remarkable patience and persistence in getting his way in the face of ignorant electors
· Step 4: draft a by-law knowing that, not only will if annoy, inconvenience and cost residents, but that it will NOT solve the real problem. Residents know that the real problem is the ability of developers to raze a home to the ground when it covers less than half the land, and profit from the 2030 law by covering the “lot” with buildings so that there is no change of a real garden with significant trees
In Summary, this law is bureaucratic in the extreme; ineffectual in that any developer will exploit its many escape clauses; anti-democratic in that Sir Humphrey proposes to propose it until we damn well give in
So what is the alternative ?
Let's accept that the council is impotent in addressing the real issues i.e. the Bracks Government taking over planning controls (like Kew, Tooronga, and soon the junction and even the Station), and the Bracks government stacking the VCAT board to make a joke of council planning decisions.
The Boroondara Action Group (BRAG) has many alternative suggestions for improving our leafy suburb. These have been collected from interested residents who take action for themselves as well as supporting us in many campaigns.
Alternatives to ineffectual bureaucracy are many - and include:
- tree protection triggered by any change in ownership or land use so that developers are targetted
If the council wants to acknowledge that trees grown by residents on private land have contributed to the community, then why not help the tree growing residents rather than penalising them:
- rate relief to reward and encourage those that maintain a significant canopy tree cover - sort of Camberwell Carbon credits !
- support for tree growers such as seedlings, tree management, tree pruning.
I recommend that you reject this costly window dressing that paints the Camberwell gardener as the culprit, and send a message to the council to get off the back of the responsible tree growing residents and do what they are paid for: Find a way to address the destruction of trees by overdevelopment all over Boroondara.
· Step 1: draft a bylaw that appoints a council officer as arbiter of the aesthetics of our back yards while the council allows hideously inappropriate developments within and creeping out from our commercial zones. They can’t improve the taste of developers but they can supervise yours !
· Step 2: Draft a by-law that requires council officers to maintain registers; inspect pruning and lopping where they feel like it; write notices of instruction; keep records of their decisions
· hold meeting about their decisions (probably with lawyers !). All while council merrily increases our rates. “Public service” starts to stand for an empire of interference by an officious super nanny.
· Step 3: draft a by-law substantially similar to previous proposals that encountered great community opposition. Sir Humphrey Appleby certainly has remarkable patience and persistence in getting his way in the face of ignorant electors
· Step 4: draft a by-law knowing that, not only will if annoy, inconvenience and cost residents, but that it will NOT solve the real problem. Residents know that the real problem is the ability of developers to raze a home to the ground when it covers less than half the land, and profit from the 2030 law by covering the “lot” with buildings so that there is no change of a real garden with significant trees
In Summary, this law is bureaucratic in the extreme; ineffectual in that any developer will exploit its many escape clauses; anti-democratic in that Sir Humphrey proposes to propose it until we damn well give in
So what is the alternative ?
Let's accept that the council is impotent in addressing the real issues i.e. the Bracks Government taking over planning controls (like Kew, Tooronga, and soon the junction and even the Station), and the Bracks government stacking the VCAT board to make a joke of council planning decisions.
The Boroondara Action Group (BRAG) has many alternative suggestions for improving our leafy suburb. These have been collected from interested residents who take action for themselves as well as supporting us in many campaigns.
Alternatives to ineffectual bureaucracy are many - and include:
- tree protection triggered by any change in ownership or land use so that developers are targetted
If the council wants to acknowledge that trees grown by residents on private land have contributed to the community, then why not help the tree growing residents rather than penalising them:
- rate relief to reward and encourage those that maintain a significant canopy tree cover - sort of Camberwell Carbon credits !
- support for tree growers such as seedlings, tree management, tree pruning.
I recommend that you reject this costly window dressing that paints the Camberwell gardener as the culprit, and send a message to the council to get off the back of the responsible tree growing residents and do what they are paid for: Find a way to address the destruction of trees by overdevelopment all over Boroondara.
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