Kerre Woodham: Tree feller left stumped by law

I really, really don't want to beat up the Auckland City Council this week but they force my hand. I was thinking just the other day that I really must put pen to paper and thank the council for looking after the trees on my street so well. They are beautiful old trees that form a canopy over the road in summer but come winter, they drop their leaves. Council contractors regularly turn up and take away the leaves and tend to the trees so they continue to prosper and flourish. And I am deeply grateful.

If someone tried to cut down one of our beautiful trees, I would chain myself to the branches and stand by to be bulldozed, like the most Californian of tree-hugging protestors. But, dear me. The council's treatment of Alice Presley, and many other ratepayers with similar stories, is appalling.

It's not just Auckland, to be fair. From what my talkback callers were telling me, Waitakere is as bad, as is Rotorua. But when a whopping great tree on private property is spoiling the water supply, impinging on neighbour's property, rooting up the driveway, casting the house into permanent shadow and costing an absolute fortune in maintenance to keep it away from power lines, why on earth shouldn't you be able to chop the bloody thing down?

If you have to pay for its upkeep, surely you can decide the thing's fate. It wasn't even a native. It was a liquid amber - the sort of tree seldom planted on private property in North America precisely because of the problems it has caused Alice. But it was over 8m, in fact it was almost double that, and so it came under council protection.

Did you know we have a Tree Council? This council is an incorporated charity, funded by the local Auckland authorities, to protect mature trees in the Auckland region and therefore enhance our collective quality of life. At the expense of Alice's quality of life. And her immediate neighbours who were also affected by the overgrown liquid amber. And we have only ourselves to blame.

The council notifies neighbourhoods that there will be hearings to decide the future of the city, and who goes? The lobby groups. Those people who are organised and passionate about issues - like trees. The rest of us put the council bumph to one side and get on with our lives, until such time as the story of Alice Presley and her battle with the Auckland council hits the news and we wonder how it could happen. The answer is we let it.

In a report entitled "The management of suburban amenity values in Auckland city", public concern was expressed about the cutting of trees. Public concern wasn't expressed. A motivated, passionate organised group of people who understand how the system works, wanted to ensure trees weren't chopped down willy nilly to make way for buildings and that was the genesis of the legislation that led to Alice being sentenced to 180 hours of community service for thumbing her nose at the Auckland City Council. She asked nicely if she could cut down her tree twice; was denied permission, twice, and when she went ahead and did it anyway, the court threw the book at her.

The longest period of community service you can get is 200 hours, so Alice is right up there with the very worst of offenders. Which is absurd. There has to be a way for the council to see reason and differentiate between money-hungry developers chopping down trees at will, and private householders with very good reasons for chopping down one tree - and replanting another more suitable for the landscape.

Stupid legislation means people will do stupid things and we all live to regret that.