Rudman's city: Bylaws leave central city trees out on a limb

By BRIAN RUDMAN

Property developers try to fool us all by dressing sharp and tooling around in flash motors. But at heart they really are just frustrated bulldozer drivers, itching to flatten anything they can.

Take the recent sale of the Northern Roller Mills in downtown Auckland. On Friday, with the ink still wet on the $9 million deal, the new owners, Manson Developments, were on the Shortland St site mowing down anything green - old pohutakawa in particular - and feeding them into the chipper. It was like a tom cat proclaiming its move into new territory by peeing on anything upright.

Even a luxuriant, and presumably valuable and transplantable, mature palm tree fell victim to the deadly chainsaw frenzy.

"I wasn't aware of that," says general manager, Mike Newland. As for the timing, he says there was "no particular reason".

"We had ourselves geared up and we could do it. It's something we were entitled to do, we had our reasons to do it, so we've done it."

Mr Newland says his company's plans for the site are not clear yet, but "whatever we do, they [the trees] are not going to fit with what our plans are".

That's because where the trees were, at the corner of Shortland St and Emily Place, "is more than likely to be the entrance area to whatever we develop".

What comes as something of a shock is that unlike suburban dwellers, central business district property owners like Manson Developments can hack away at any tree on their land with impunity, as long as it is not listed as a "notable" tree on the district plan.

Out in suburbia the constraints are severe - indeed, some would say draconian.

You need council permission to chop down, trim or dig near the roots of any native tree over 6m in height or with a girth greater than 600mm. For exotic trees, the height trigger is 8m and the girth 800mm.

It's a restriction on our inbuilt settler instincts to slash and burn, which most go along with, despite the inconvenience it can sometime cause. Downtown though, trees are still fair game.

It's a situation which University of Auckland grounds superintendent Tony Palmer wants changed.

He saw the woodcutters going like "bulls in a china shop" in Shortland St on Friday and worries for the fate of other private property trees in the CBD. What, for example, might happen to the virtual botanic garden around the university buildings once he has gone?

George Farrant, Auckland City Council heritage manager, says he shouldn't worry. The entire grounds of Old Government House, trees and all, for example, has a category A heritage protection.

He says most other CBD trees are safe in public parks. Council officials have tried to list other significant trees on private CBD property.

For all that, when a significant grove of greenery is hacked down, as happened last Friday, you have to worry about where next the axe will fall and wonder why what's good enough for suburbia isn't law in the CBD as well.