'Money always wins': Inside Sydney's underground tree-killing industry | Hacker News Reader

'Money always wins': Inside Sydney's underground tree-killing industry

abc.net.au

43 pointsadrian_mrd23 comments

> She explains that in some cases a tree can be bad for feng shui because it can potentially block the flow of money or it could throw off the balance of yin and yang.

These people are awful human beings and I hope these councils institute some real criminal penalties for cutting down any old growth.

in this area in California, buying homes with money from China is common, and those home buyers are well known for cutting down trees on their property for whatever reasons, stated or otherwise. Something about the trees "costing money" is fairly common statement. It seems to be a tip of big, old and ingrained cultural and economic differences between social groups.

In Washington state I see it as being a pattern with outsiders regardless of ethnicity, including those moving in from other states like California, not just from other countries. They seem to have a lower respect for trees and the natural environment in general, and are willing to break the law or simply push for laws to be changed if it means they’re better off financially. Earlier it was just upper middle class or rich people who couldn’t afford a view home but made a view illegally by cutting trees. But now that a lot more people want to move to places like Seattle but can’t afford it, the anti tree anti environmental political group is a large and powerful section of the population - and they view their entitlement to cheap housing as being more important even though many move to Washington state for its natural beauty, which is why they support builder friendly politicians and laws that remove environmental protections for trees.

The councils are lead by people who are themselves woefully corrupt human beings generally operating in the political world solely for private gain and largely funded by the real estate industry. They have zero interest in actually implementing environmental policy, and high interest in pretending to do so.

Case in point #1, one of our councils recently was given AUD$50M by the state to implement a new park. They failed to do so. This was largely because they decided the best place for doing so was on top of an endangered ecological community and their plan was literally to flatten it, replace it with an array of 'playing fields' (like 3+) and then - get this - spray it with sewerage in lieu of investing in adequate wastewater infrastructure, despite the fact all runoff would be directed in to a National Park. This proved to take longer to achieve from a regulatory wrangling perspective than they had counted on, the state-specified timeline has well expired, but somehow all the money has been spent and no longer available to return to the state and there is also no park. Note their other commitments to the same national park include a neighbouring elevated rifle range (so that it is now too dangerous to walk through the park, in a country with historically near-zero popular gun use), an off-road dirt bike allocation, and a neighbouring industrial district. The mayor (whose office never does anything, even respond to communications) suddenly spent public funds sending a letter to all residents urging them to complain to the state government on his behalf, and ordered the council to change their email footers to "save our sports" or some associated transparent drivel. Absolute duplicitousness and entrenched corruption.

Case in point #2, I recently identified outright false documentation being supplied by a career real estate developer (readily identified by the use of a long-established trust with a local real estate name and decades of legal records) in order to justify the clearance for potential development of a piece of land with something like 97% historic tree coverage. Nothing was done: either to the professionals who supplied the fake paperwork, to the applicant who was a consultant specifically hired to grease what palms needed greasing to get such things through council, nor to the trust, nor to the council. It didn't matter, because they cleared the land without any paperwork prior to any approval being granted. With this brought to the attention of council, whose own policies this breached, they did precisely zero. When I insisted, they simply stopped responding to emails. I brought this to the attention of the anti-corruption body and multiple government ministers, none of whom did anything. This is the state of local government in Sydney right now: a farce. My sole option is to launch a court case on my own resources, which is something all evidence points to as equally ineffective.

Case in point #3, I personally know of two large (100+ year old) trees removed within the last 12 months on false pretenses and one more that has been poisoned with intent for the same. The specific way the rules have been created ensures there is nothing that can be done about it.

Australia has become a highly corrupt cesspit of inefficiency, mutual back-scratching and amoral non-governance with little to practically differentiate it from the semi-anarchist developing world states it neighbours in Asia save the legacy of gin and tonic and a little less time to apply the intertia of destruction. This is why I for one want Julian Assange in power: he knows how to rally people behind radical transparency and it's high time this happened. In our lifetime? Maybe.

Which council?

The tree thing is state-wide. Most of my complaints and examples relate to Hornsby, one recent tree within Kuringgai.

It’s a shame so many people can’t see it as clearly as you can. There’s still time to do something about the state of things here. The worry is that when things are bad enough that cooperation is forcefully necessitated, it’ll be too late.

This is an issue in many cities in the US as well, where owners of view properties are suspected or found to have killed a tree to improve their use of the land. Sometimes it’s on their own property but sometimes it’s on adjacent public property. And sometimes it’s using a chainsaw and sometimes poison.

In Seattle, a city with lots of trees, the big problem today is sanctioned tree killing. The current over-focus on building housing and increasing density has meant revised tree codes that are friendly to builders and reduced enforcement that ignores the obvious destruction of the city’s tree cover.

As an example: a friend living next to a new development saw the builders come cut down several large old trees in the evening on a weekend (probably to avoid attention), and immediately feed them into a large wood chipper towed on site. They were alerted to it by the sound of big trees crashing to the ground. It all happened very quickly. The city was involved due to complaints from multiple neighbors but they decided there was no evidence the trees were protected (due to size), which of course was by design since the evidence was immediately shredded and no one was quick enough to get a photo of the crime. In the end the city did find there was illegal clearing of many trees without appropriate permits (from old survey maps of the lot), but chose not to apply the code and fines (which can be big for large trees) and let the developer plant a small number of saplings in some other site (outside of the city) as if that were equivalent. What was especially concerning was the city told complaining neighbors that they were choosing to not enforce the law because it is a property developer and not a private homeowner.

In my experience, this type of unofficially permitted tree killing by builders is much more common and a far bigger problem than the rare issue of a private homeowner taking down a tree or two. Apart from the attitude towards new development, it is also an issue of corruption since the organizations representing builders are very involved (financially and otherwise) in local politics.

Seattle does have a concept of “exceptional trees” (a big old tree worth saving) which are protected by law. But it requires involving the city for them to be recognized and documented.

A friend quashed a developers’ plans in West Seattle by getting ahold of the city to come out and look at what he thought was likely an exceptional tree. The city arborist confirmed that it was and noted that several more were as well.

YMMV, but definitely advocate and engage the city ASAP if there’s any sign of development around big trees.

My friend says the trees in that situation were definitely exceptional but that the survey maps don’t track tree size or age, just locations and types. So the neighbors had no evidence of the trees being exceptional, except their testimony. The city basically chose not to investigate the practice of cutting trees at an odd hour or the immediately shredding of the trees to destroy the evidence. The issue the neighbors wanted enforced was that it was an environmentally protected area due to the property being on a slope and with a stream next to the slope. That’s what the city had the complete ability to give the builders big fines for, but they chose not to.

What I don't understand about this story is that it takes a ton of work to uproot a tree, and if you don't do that, there would be evidence of exceptional trees in the form of their stumps. Makes me wonder who the builders know.

I love trees. I plant a lot of them.

I noticed one friendly neighbor remark that one of our oldest cedars was a fine specimen and that he wanted to register it.

It got girdled, and I cut it down as soon as possible. I planted three trees.

I don't understand, did you girdle the tree?

You may think that, but I couldn't possibly comment.

I was trying to convey that laws should be carefully written, not to motivate people to do things that keep them inside the law yet are still damaging.

> As a kind of collective public shaming, council has erected huge yellow and orange billboards that face the houses opposite the site. “THESE SIGNS WILL REMAIN UNTIL THE TREES GROW BACK”, they read.

Good. I was thinking hot-pink cell phone towers to replace the trees.

Saw a similar sign in a beach town south of Melbourne where a tree cull had occurred across from another three story modern villa.

> hot-pink cell phone towers to replace the trees

You might just stimulate shortcuts to get cellphone towers approved.

> “I had terrible customers in the Palm Beach area, Manly area, Bondi. They asked me to cut trees on the water, on public land. They told me, ‘just come at night, drop it’,” he says.

The people who can name names and testify... could retire from tree labor, by pivoting to blackmail?

> James says clients often tell him “name your price” and he says some job offers have been worth up to $15,000. [...] James suspects a tree lopper would charge at least $20,000 for a big, risky job like the one at Castle Cove.

Then again, they already know that these particular rich people are comfortable hiring lower-class people to illegally remove annoyances.

So blackmail of any single party might be capped well below the going market rate for removal of a blackmailer?

> As a kind of collective public shaming, council has erected huge yellow and orange billboards that face the houses opposite the site.

> “THESE SIGNS WILL REMAIN UNTIL THE TREES GROW BACK”, they read.

That's an interesting solution.

If a tree dies on your property you will get a concrete memorial pillar in its place, with a billboard of city's choosing or whatever else the city decides. A solar panel, a wind turbine, an electric or telecom pole, radio mast. Pillar paid for with your money of course.

Unless you promptly replace the tree with replanted one of similar size.

I like the signs. I'd take it further--if a protected tree dies it's investigated why. Anything other than a determination that it's definitely natural means the only thing that can be done with the land is trees. Nothing is taken from the property owner because they bought the land knowing the trees were there. If they planned illegal enrichment, too bad.

If money always wins, then it's time for some vigilante arson. There's no point in having a great view if the property no longer exists, right?

That should send a message pretty quickly.

The solution is simple: do not allow planning permission for anything where a tree once stood, and require the property owner to replant where a tree was killed. This won’t take care of those killed for the views because young trees won’t be as tall, but it would certainly remove the incentive from tennis courts.

let's look at the scale of the problem ... ~300 trees in a region that has no shortage of trees

Why is it impossible to find another resolution that satisfies both the homeowner and ecologists?

PS. I know of a similar problem - where some giant oak trees along a house are so dense that the owners have to use artificial lighting in their rooms during the summer at just about all times,

The trees are owned by the township but reach well over the property and are clearly too big, half as big trees would suffice, the township does not allow trimming the trees without a legal fight

Why should someone be deprived of natural light in their own home? Just cut back on the tree; it is not the end of the world or Mother Nature.

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