KALAMUNDA council’s July decision to support a draft future forest policy which removes the previous bias toward tree retention from its clauses has left resident advocates concerned about the lack of protection.

Kalamunda Tree Canopy Advocates spokesperson Vicki Laurie said the draft policy appeared to protect nothing in its new form.

“It exempts all residential land – and even development land in some cases – from any meaningful protection of tree cover,” she said.

“It was extremely revealing to hear a council staff planner inform us that officers were given a clear directive from council to avoid ‘the bias towards tree retention in the revoked policy’ and ‘to exempt all tree retention requirements’ for residential land.

“That same expert planner was publicly praised at a WALGA conference in March this year for his skill in applying the previous local planning policy 33 tree retention to successfully retain a large number of mature trees on a High Wycombe housing subdivision.

“The officer confirmed that trees were retained ‘as a direct result of the formal policy being in place at the time.’

“That will no longer happen if the new draft local planning policy 33 future forest, is implemented.”

The draft policy document said the purpose of the policy was to facilitate the City of Kalamunda’s future forest by balancing the retention and replanting of trees in a manner consistent with community expectations.

“To achieve balance, enhanced canopy cover is facilitated through replacement tree planting where tree removal is granted approval,” it said.

“The objectives of this policy are to encourage and facilitate the protection of trees worthy of retention when it is reasonable to do so, enhance the urban tree canopy through development approvals, guide landowners on the normal maintenance of their land and provide methodologies to inform landowners and developers that aspire to go beyond the minimum standards for environmental management.”

The document defines a tree worthy of retention as a healthy specimen with a height of at least 4m and/or a trunk diameter of at least 160mm, measured a metre from the ground, and/or an average canopy diameter of at least 4m.

Trees with hollows, including dead trees, that allow black cockatoo breeding are also defined as worthy of retention in the new policy.

In a February electors’ meeting, many Kalamunda residents in support of the previously revoked tree retention policy attended to request the council reinstate the policy which was revoked with three days notice.

Finally, trees that are not registered as weeds or are included but provide habitat for threatened bird species, along with new trees planted as a requirement for subdivision or development approval  are all classified as worthy of retention.

As reported in Kalamunda’s tree policy response a wakeup call (Echo News, February 7) advocates at the meeting were concerned at the lack of direction in the current policy about tree preservation.

Local planning policy 33 tree retention was passed in December 2022 and was introduced to guide applicants and decision makers to consider the need for the removal of trees and, where possible, minimise the removal of trees of a particular size through planning and development processes.

According to an officer’s report, the original policy was passed in 2022 to guide considerations on the need of tree removal and minimise the removal of significantly sized trees as reported in Applause as Kalamunda bins tree retention policy (Echo News, March 1, 2024).