Not public trees

The Herald reports:

Aucklanders hoping to save a favourite tree from being chopped when the law changes in 2012 could face a $20,000 bill.

A planning report for Auckland City Council estimated that as the cost of adding a single pohutukawa in Epsom to its list of protected trees.

In another case, the Tree Council (Auckland) was told it would have to pay an $11,000 deposit to try for a private plan change to protect an 80 to 100-year-old pohutukawa in Rosebank Rd, Avondale.

The story is accompanied with a photo of a tree in a park next to a beach. This gives the impression that tress in public parks and areas are under some sort of threat.

Not once in the article is it made clear that these potential costs are around trees on private land. It is the cost of trying to impose your will onto the tree owner.

Under the old law the tree owner had to pay the Council for the right to trim or fell his or her own trees on their private property. Now the cost falls on the busy bodies who want to prevent a property owner from trimming or felling a tree they own. That is how it should be.

It is a shame the Herald article not once makes it clear this change is about trees on private land only, not on public land.