Neighbours at war: Aucklanders at loggerheads over tree protections

Sunday, 26 October 2025

There's a rustle in the urban jungle as Aucklanders concerned with preserving their private property rights clash with tree-loving greenies, leading to claims of “environmental radicalism” as a new system allowing anyone to nominate any tree for protection takes root. Jonathan Killick reports.

“This whole thing is annoying me,” writes Lina Cao of Auckland’s Mt Wellington.

She’s among scores of households who have been submitting on a zoning plan change that could see some 174 mature trees added to the “notable” register for protection - much of them are on private property.

“These [Karaka and Puriri] are making a huge mess and are a danger to the community,” submits Cao. “Council thinks about trees, why do they never think about the feelings of us human beings?”

It’s the first time that a new system brought in by the Unitary Plan in 2016 has been utilised, and it’s one in which anyone in Auckland can nominate any tree for protected status.

“I don’t understand why various members of the public think this tree should be added,” says Cao. “We don’t want this extra stress in life just because some people who walk on the street want trees to be notable instead of considering our feelings.”

It’s one of more than 100 submissions protesting the perceived negative impacts from trees including leaf litter, falling sticks, roots that damage pipes and airborne pollen.

At stake, say some, is private property rights, as protected status would prevent future development around a given tree without resource consent.

Even trimming branches more than 5cm in diameter would require permission from the council, and paying a qualified arborist to do it.

And it’s not just households, with the Ministry of Education and Kāinga Ora also having opposed protection on about 13 trees on government land, saying it creates “uncertainty and inefficiency”.

Mels Barton of the Tree Council, however, has been through each of the objections, responding to many, and tells the Sunday Star-Times they’re “just complete bollocks”.

“In most cases it's total nonsense and [shows] a lack of understanding of how important their tree is.”

Barton says if Auckland’s big old trees aren’t imminently protected from rapid intensification and development, there won’t be any left in 20 years.

“That's a pretty bad situation to leave for future generations,” she says. “Auckland will be a sad, concrete, hot, horrible place to live, and I hope I'm dead by then.”

Only 18% of Auckland’s urban area has tree cover, providing vital shelter and water soakage as climate change intensifies, and the council has a goal of reaching 30% by 2050.

But where some see the leafy canopy as a natural amenity and haven for wildlife, others see an arboreal abomination.

For instance, Shaun Elrick’s nominated Gingko tree has caused a right stink among his Remuera neighbours.

His neighbour Wendy Cotter wrote to the council saying she could “hardly be outside” due to the offensive aroma of its fruit.

“It’s like a foul vomit, [and] it gets on the bottom our shoes and the vomit smell is in our house.”

The strain on neighbourly relations has been such that Elrick allowed an arborist to come and cut the tree right back.

He’s a little perplexed as to why it would now be worthy of protection.

“If the council wants to say it's a tree for public amenity then they should pay for its upkeep. As it is, it probably devalues my property by hundreds of thousands of dollars.”

Auckland Council’s John Duguid, general manager planning and resource consents, says trees are important for everyone because they help to keep the city “cool and clean”.

“As Auckland’s population grows and the city becomes denser, they’re vital to keeping our neighbourhoods healthy and liveable.”

Plan Change 113, updating the notable tree register, has been years in the making.

And, Duguid says the council has made an application to the Ministry of Environment requesting exemption from Chris Bishop’s legislated planning freeze.

It would mean that a public hearing could be held early to mid next year in which household submitters will be able to argue the case for or against their trees before commissioners.

It’s an imposition that Titirangi’s Jason Burgess doesn’t believe he ought to have to deal with.

“I've already been sick of [local] government overreach for the last 20 years, but this is getting into petty stuff now.”

He says his neighbour’s Coast Redwood up for protection is “problematic in so many ways”.

“In winter the tree blocks my northern light, plunging our home and property into darkness for at least two hours a day,” he’s told the council.

He adds to the Star-Times: “I don’t want it chopped down, I just want windows cut into it.

“[Protecting] a non native that has the potential to grow into a skyscraper and become a hazard to our very homes is a bridge too far for me.”

Burgess says in the age of “healthy homes”, requirements “giving this tree more rights than a rate payer to keep his property in good condition is not only a slap in the face, it is hypocritical”.

“When are they going to tell me that I have to move out of my house because the tree has got more rights than I've got? That’s where this stuff is heading.”

Says Mels Barton: “If anybody thinks that trees have got rights in this city, it's a joke.”

New Zealand used to allow councils to have blanket protections on backyard trees, but the RMA was amended by then-Minister for Environment Amy Adams in 2012 to prevent them.

Auckland brought in the notable tree register along with the Unitary Plan - but Barton says it took the Tree Council going to the High Court in 2020 to get the council to progress nominations.

As it stands, 60% of the “urban forest” is under threat, she says.

Titirangi’s Jason Burgess, meanwhile, was not pleased with Barton’s response on behalf of the Tree Council to his submission on the Redwood next door. She called his comments “overstated and exaggerated” in the public response.

“I consider this an unfounded statement … My comments are from lived experience,” Burgess responded.

The Redwood’s shedding leaves “literally cover the whole property”, he says, not to mention “two to three bucket loads” he has to bail out of his gutters in autumn.

Barton tells the Star-Times she think’s it’s “disgusting” that Aucklanders aren’t “grown up enough” to recognise the city needs trees as well as people.

“All of those [submissions] are really just very short-sighted. I could use worse words, but they're ill-informed.

“Do they not realise how special that tree is every single day or do they just go ‘oh that bloody tree, I’m going to have to sweep the leaves up again’?”

Arborist Shaun Hardman says new owners of notable trees can expect to pay somewhere between $2000 and $3000 for a crew to come and trim their tree.

Resource consents, however, are free.

“I think the council makes it easy because it means they know what’s going on, rather than having people turn up to hack at a tree.”

And Hardman says the system can protect landowners from “horror stories” where unqualified arborists accidentally fell trunks onto structures.

“The cowboy nature in the industry is really bad right now … The problem in Auckland is that anyone with a chainsaw can call themselves an arborist and go around cutting down notable trees.”

Barton says members of the Tree Council spent “every weekend for months” driving around the city looking for good trees to nominate, and were disappointed so few of the 260 sites were included by the council in the proposed plan change.

She acknowledges that the nominations have caused a lot of objections but says they’re mainly “complete bollocks”.

However one objector, Remuera’s Ed Richards, thought his Argentinian Ombu tree was of such average quality that it must have been “identified in error”.

“I'm certainly not the sort of person who cuts trees down, but it exploded my rockwall,” he tells the Star-Times.

“All trees have got something to offer, but these ones have massive bulging root systems.”

And he says having to get consent to knock it back when necessary would be “unduly burdensome, impractical, and entirely inappropriate”.

Richards says the Tree Council seem like “extremists” to him - “a sort of a radical environmentalism”.

“Imagine if they came to you and said ‘hey we told the council about your tree’ and the next thing it’s on a draft protected list. It’s a little bit annoying. Wouldn’t it be courteous to consult?”

Says Barton “Right, yeah. We're so radical. We're just following a process that's initiated by the council. Anybody can nominate a tree.

“And, it’s not all about you - a landowner that is going to be present on this property for a very short period of time in the tree's life, before you flick it off to someone else. It's a very selfish attitude and a bit self-righteous, really,” she says.

“They [objectors] don't understand that these trees are heritage assets for the whole city, for the whole of New Zealand.”

Michelle Cook with her Bunya-bunya Pine on nearby Maungarei Rd is one of only a few submitters who proactively nominated a tree on their own land for protection.

She told the council it was “a living part of the family” and a source of natural beauty.

“We are deeply concerned that without protection, neighbours or future owners may remove or significantly alter this tree.”

Cook tells the Star-Times she’s had some “heated” conversations with neighbours who have “jokingly threatened to poison it”.

“When the branches come down, they come down pretty hard … unfortunately my neighbour did build a deck and spa right underneath it.

“For me, it’s mostly about the birdlife. It acts as a way station for big flocks and I get a constant stream of activity.”

Cook acknowledges she is in a privileged position allowing her to put her values ahead of future financial gain.

“Some people might think that I’m devaluing the property, but I felt that the tree had been there a lot longer, and it needed to be protected.”

Despite the proposed protections, not all is yet peachy for even the trees that have made the list due to what Barton calls a “massive hole” in the process - a lack of “interim protection”.

Onehunga’s Simon Booth nominated his neighbour’s “entwined” Puriri and Pohutakawa calling them a “tremendous source for birds in the area”.

His enthusiasm was matched by equally bitter disappointment after finding they had been felled before a council arborist could even inspect them.

“This whole thing was a waste of time - they dropped the trees as soon as you sent them the letter!,” he told the council.

For Barton the gap in the legislation allowing it to happen only underscores why as many trees as possible need to be included in the register.

She agrees the selection criteria isn’t perfect.

“It's a crap process, a blunt instrument, not really fit for purpose, but it's all we've got.”