North Shore residents continue to oppose a couple's plans to remove oaks from their property. A development is on hold and the trees are still standing. Edward Rooney explains.
Three lofty, lush oak trees on a North Shore City councillor's property are about the only silent parties in a year-long,
heated debate about their future.
Back in January this year, The Aucklander first revealed the tree destruction plans on the Belle Vue Ave section owned by veteran local politician Tony Holman.
Mr Holman's wife, Dinah, applied to remove the oaks, plus a clump of cabbage trees and a large karaka tree exactly one year ago today.
Neighbours were appalled that the oaks were in line for the axe and objected. One of them, Cherry Barber, said the trees were prominent landmarks that provided her property with welcome shade in summer. She had asked the Holman family to take better care of them and was stunned they wanted to chop them down.
The latest twist to the saga follows attempts by nine people, including Mrs Barber, to have the oak trees protected by nominating them as "notable'' trees.
A planner and arborist from North Shore City Council assessed the trees and considered them worthy of protection. But, on October 20, the council's strategy and finance committee resolved the opposite of officers' recommendations - that landowners should be given the right to veto nominations for the schedule.
Mr Holman attended the meeting but asked the secretary to note that he took no part in discussions on the matter.
When The Aucklander spoke to Mr Holman about the trees in January, he said it was his wife who was handling the matter. He said the neighbours "can comment until the cows come home'' but the decision will be properly considered by the appropriate authorities.
"It will go before the council planners and city commissioners and I will not be one of them,'' he says.
Mrs Holman told The Aucklander last week that development plans for the section are on hold.
Meanwhile, Mrs Barber and her neighbours are flabbergasted and puzzled as to what can be done next to try to save the trees. "When 76 people across the entire North Shore nominate trees for protection, and nine of them feel strongly about these ones,
then that should be taken as a clear message,'' she says. "How is it that a landowner can simply veto that?''
North Shore residents continue to oppose a couple's plans to remove oaks from their property. A development is on hold and the trees are still standing. Edward Rooney explains.
Three lofty, lush oak trees on a North Shore City councillor's property are about the only silent parties in a year-long,
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