Report on Council Meeting – 8th March 2016

Early March 2016 inc Churchlands and Weaponess 093

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Below is a report on last night’s City of Stirling Planning & Development Committee Meeting, regarding TREES AND DEVELOPMENT – LOCAL PLANNING SCHEME NO.3 AMENDMENT AND POLICY – INITIATION  (the full Agenda can be found here on page 124).

It is important to note that, this is just the first step, there is a long way to get an amendment to the Local Planning Scheme, it would take over a year to get an amendment decided on and then approved by the WAPC.  The whole proposal has to go out for public consultation.

Whilst we congratulate the City’s initiative in proposing this amendment,  we must stress that the amendment must be capable of protecting the tree canopy.  Existing trees provide canopy cover, new trees don’t for  around 20 years.

During the discussion on this item, Councillors spent most of their time debating what should happen when developers remove trees, rather than how to stop them removing them.

One sticking point was in Attachment 1 of the Agenda on pg 141;

d) The Council may as a condition of planning approval require the planting of an advanced tree, at the applicant’s cost, on an abutting road reserve.

Cr. David Michael argued that the Council should pay for trees on road reserves (verge/street trees) and the word “applicant” should be changed to “Council”.  However, this was strongly contested by Cr. David Boothman, who said that the objective was to retain existing trees  (pg 140) because it was too expensive for the City to replace them for developers.  Cr. Michael’s argument was voted down.

Councillors voted to recommend Option 2, on page 131.  Though some said they felt that Option 4 would be more effective at protecting the tree canopy,  but they didn’t think the WAPC would never allow it and therefore,  it would be better to have Option 2 than nothing at all?  Cr Guilfoyle was the only one who stressed he wanted Option 4.  The Committee’s recommendation will now go to the full Council Meeting next Tuesday (15th March, 7pm).

We wanted them to vote for Option 4 , see our Deputation given at the beginning of the meeting.  We believe we need an amendment that will do an effective job of protecting existing trees and assist in increasing the urban canopy, otherwise this whole exercise would all be a total waste of time?

If the WAPC refuse to approve an amendment, that would enable the City of Stirling to effectively protect the urban canopy and mitigate dangerous urban heat and protect  their citizens from rising temperatures, then they will have to try and justify that decision to the people of WA?  Cities over East and around the world are protecting trees, we must too.

Stalling tactics can no longer be tolerated, lives and our economy is at stake.

 

2 thoughts on “Report on Council Meeting – 8th March 2016

  1. Hello Stirling Urban Tree Network

    Firstly, thankyou for your efforts.

    I completely agree with you, and am extremely alarmed at the Councils stance you outline below. Should they not act now, and vote for Option 4, they will find that, in time, the community and the world will judge the councillors very badly on taking such a regressive stance on this very important matter.

    I am extremely shocked that you state that some councillors “felt that option 4 would be more effective at protecting the tree canopy, but that they didn’t think the WAPC would ever allow it…”. Is that really a legitimate reason not to fight and push for something that is extremely important, something that most cities and councils around the world that are more progressive than Stirling have implemented already? The City of Stirling has a great opportunity to show leadership to other councils on this matter, and to vote for positive change. Option 2 is not positive change.

    The councillors stance also seems to be at odds with the City’s Community Tree Officer (Gabriela Eiris), who, in response to an email I wrote to her a few months ago regarding protecting our trees, encouraged me to “voice your support for the introduction of Stirling-wide tree protection legislation”, which I did, and which I am doing again right now.

    Regards Ben McMillen

    Sent from my iPad

    • Hopefully we will be able to persuade them to be bolder. We need people to contact them and show up at Council Meetings. Their recommendation will will go to the full Council Meeting on Tuesday night at 7pm.

      Each member of the public can ask 3 questions. It is just a matter of printing out two copies, of you questions, one to hand to City staff on arrival before the meeting starts (6.50pm) and one copy to read from.

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