Rules to protect Tauranga's most notable privately-owned trees are to be simplified to try to reverse the decline in trees on the council's register.
No new trees have been added to the city's notable and landscape tree register for 10 years. Instead numbers have reduced "considerably" on the 2000 specimens originally
listed _ mainly due to subdivision pressures.
The council this week decided it wants to simplify the process of adding trees to the register, together with changing the criteria for allowing a tree to be removed from the list.
It will mean abolishing the requirement in which adding a tree to the register needed a District Plan change.
The council also wants to allow registered trees to be maintained without owners having to apply for a resource consent. In the meantime, it will waive application fees for consents to prune the trees.
The proposed new approach is part of the city-wide vegetation management strategy adopted by the council this week.
It will spend $35,000 in 2010 to go through the process of changing the rules surrounding registered trees.
In the meantime the council will survey all the trees listed on the register to check they are still there.
The new rules may include increasing the minimum contribution of $85 payable to allow a protected tree to be felled and replaced as close by as possible with an equivalent tree.
City arborist Steve Webb did not know how many registered trees had been removed over the years, although he suspects it was "considerable".
