Property owners may become liable for trees falling on power lines

Wednesday, 8 March 2023

Trees appear to have the upper hand on Military Track in Wellington.

Electricity lines companies would be able to issue more warning notices to landowners who had trees growing too close to power lines, under a proposal suggested by officials.

The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment has come out in support of tilting the rules surrounding trees and power lines so they are more in favour of power companies.

Property owners can currently be required to keep foliage at least 50 centimetres away from a low-voltage power line, with wider zones applying to more powerful lines, though lines companies must pay for the first trim.

The ministry’s preferred option, set out in a discussion document, would not change that rule.

But it would allow lines companies to issue a new kind of warning notice if they identified a clear risk that a tree further away might fall on a power line.

Kasey Smith is shocked to see how Cyclone Gabrielle snapped trees in half in the central North Island. Video first published February 15 2023.

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Property owners who failed to take action within a given timeframe could then be held liable for any damage if the tree later fell on the power line, the ministry has suggested.

It said its next most-preferred option would be to instead give lines companies a “very broad power” to order the trimming or removal of any tree or shrub that was likely to interfere with a power line.

That option would also “shift the cost of remedial action under the regulations to the vegetation owners”, but would probably require a law change, it said.

The ministry is inviting submissions on its proposals by April 19, but Energy Minister Megan Woods has already signalled the Government is minded to make changes.

Cyclone Gabrielle had highlighted the hazards posed to electricity lines and transmission infrastructure from vegetation in extreme weather, Woods said.

“It is clear that we need to act to mitigate the impacts of climate change, and make sure our communities are as resilient as possible,” she said.

“Improving the trees regulations will help manage one piece of the puzzle in transitioning our country towards a climate-resilient future.”

Graeme Peters, chief executive of the Electricity Networks Association (ENA), which represents lines companies, said it embraced the review, which he said was urgently needed.

“We estimate that about half of the 225,000 people who lost power at the height of the cyclone had an outage because of trees falling or flailing into lines,” he said.

Peters said “including some consideration of tree-fall zones” would go a long way towards improving the effectiveness of the regulations.

But he said the ENA also wanted to increase the existing buffer zones around power lines and make them “clear to the sky” so branches were not allowed to hang directly over lines.

Lines companies were willing to pick up the tab for the ongoing trimming or removal trees on residential land that they assessed needed to be dealt with, if councils and commercial property owners footed that bill for their trees, he said.

Vector public policy chief Mark Toner said MBIE’s recommendations did not go far enough.

“We also need much better alignment of accountabilities and costs between networks and their customers, and the different scales of tree owners that range from a tree or two outside the family home, up to large forestry block owners,” he said/

“We also want to see preventive planting guidelines so that trees aren’t planted in the wrong place, causing issues for future generations to deal with.”