Century-old pōhutukawa could face chop thanks to council 'clerical error'

Friday, 23 April 2021

A 100-year-old pōhutukawa tree could be chopped down in Mount Eden as the council accidentally removed its protection. Arborist Mark Lockhart is leading protests.

Nothing has changed much, physically at least, for a 100-year-old pōhutukawa tree growing on a volcanic rock outcrop in suburban Mt Eden, Auckland.

It has continued adding to its 20m height and 22m canopy, towering over the neighbouring bowling club and public reserve.

But it was once ‘scheduled’, or protected officially listed as safe from being chopped down.

And now it isn’t: a self-confessed clerical error by Auckland Council means the chainsaws could start up at any time.

* Calls for Auckland Council to do more to protect trees

* Auckland Council admits mistakenly cutting down protected trees

The century-old pōhutukawa in Eglinton Avenue, Mt Eden.

It’s angered locals, who’ve gathered nearly 500 signatures to a petition inside 24 hours and taken their case to mayor Phil Goff and council chief executive Jim Stabback.

The tree, at 8 Eglinton Ave, was listed on the old Auckland City Council district plan and a list of scheduled trees tabled to the local board back in 2010. But it wasn’t transferred across to the Unitary Plan created in 2016 after Auckland’s councils merged. And until recently, nobody realised the mistake.

The tree was listed as scheduled on the LIM report when owner Jianhua Zheng bought the house in 2015. But campaigners fear Zheng will demolish the house and the tree and replace it with apartments.

Tree Council board member and landscape architect Mark Lockhart said he had met the owner, a tree contractor, a civil engineer and an architect on a site visit where they had discussed digging up the tree.

Lockhart has been pursuing the council since January to preserve the tree. He said he had legal advice that the council could use the Resource Management Act to simply add the tree back onto the scheduled list without an expensive consultation process.

The council disagreed, saying it would need a plan change that it wasn’t willing to undertake.

“This tree could be gone any day thanks to the developer,” said Lockhart.

He said protest action would be considered to save the tree.

Lockhart received an email from council democracy services advisor James Stephens that said the council’s planning team hadn’t been able to find any explanation why the tree was no longer scheduled. Removing a tree from the schedule would normally require public notification.

Mark Lockhart says he has no faith in the council to protect trees.

“This means that the most likely explanation is that this omission was an error that was not caught prior to notification…. as mentioned previously, a plan change is now the only means to reinstate this tree into the notable tree schedule,” Stephens wrote. “I know that this will be extremely disappointing to you.”

“I went back and said ‘this is unbelievable, the council is failing the city, its inhabitants and the environment’,” Lockhart said.

He said he had “no faith” in council to fix the error. Lockhart said there were some 570 trees awaiting scheduling by council, who seemed unwilling to act.

Local Andrew Clarke, who can see the “really quite imposing” tree from his house, said: “This just seems very unfair, without sounding like a five-year-old… a lot of people get a little bit of joy from seeing this tree when they walk around.

“We love living where we can look up at this huge maunga, and see the trees all around it.”

Eden ward councillor Cathy Casey said she had been approached by a number of residents and had written to both Goff and Stabback “seeking confirmation of the error and asking for urgent advice on what urgent action Auckland Council can take to protect the tree”.

Albert-Eden local board chair Margi Watson tabled an urgent resolution at last week's board meeting that asked the council to investigate how the tree lost its protection, what steps could be taken to restore it, and to report back before their next meeting on May 8. The resolution passed unanimously.

She had also heard from various locals worried the tree would be lost to development.

In a statement, Megan Tyler, council’s chief of strategy, said “significant work” was undertaken by council staff during Unitary Plan work to protect close to 7,000 trees, including all notable trees from the former councils’ district plans.

“Despite being scheduled in the former Auckland City District Plan, the pōhutukawa at 8 Eglinton Avenue was not carried over into the Unitary Plan’s tree schedule as it should have been,” she said.

“We believe this omission occurred when the data was being transferred from one plan to the other – likely human error, which we apologise for.”

Tyler said no resource consent applications had been made for development at the address.

The property’s manager, Kristy Lim of Mission Property, said she couldn’t comment as she had received no instructions from the landlord as to its future. She agreed to pass on questions to Zheng, who did not respond by deadline.