Brian Rudman: Pohutukawa hacking a Navy lark

In the good old days, the Navy celebrated the return of a warship to Devonport by wheeling out the brass band, running up a bit of bunting and firing off a gun or two.

Last week they tried something a little more macho.

When the good ship Te Kaha sailed in from several months in foreign parts, the merry matelots whipped out their chainsaws, marched to the top of the cliff overhanging the Calliope dockyards and hacked down a row of mature and treasured pohutukawa.

Shocked North Shore City works chairman Joel Cayford reckons eight or nine went in the first assault and fears a further six face a similar fate. That's if the task has not already been completed since I wrote this on Friday.

All of it was done without a how's your father to the environmental protection safeguards of the Resource Management Act, thanks to the kingly powers that Crown agencies have to thumb their noses at laws that the rest of us have to take notice of.

Mr Cayford calls it "the worst case of environmental vandalism I've seen in Devonport" and says it's "an appalling precedent to set in an urban environment noted for its coastal pohutukawa character."

It's hard to disagree with him.

And there's more to come. The Navy also plans to hack away 1200 cu m of cliff-face material - "at least 250-300 truckloads" - in a bid to stabilise the cliff face and prevent falls into the dockyards, which are now commercially run by international engineering giants Babcock New Zealand.

In a letter to the city council last October, Bernice Meyle, the Navy's environmental planning manager, said: "We will undertake the work as a matter of urgency."

Erosion beneath the trees had made a "falling of the face" likely.

Mr Cayford asks if it was really a matter of great urgency, why did they delay for more than five months before acting?

He says you could argue that every pohutukawa at the top of a cliff around the Auckland coastline is vulnerable to some extent.

The answer is not to hack them all down, but to carefully maintain the situation in order to preserve the coastal amenity for the whole community.

It certainly does seem a remarkable coincidence that every tree along a 40m stretch of bank suddenly was found to be at high risk of collapse.

Of course if you or I, or the millionaire atop the cliffs at Takapuna, decided our pohutukawa had to go, we'd be forced through the hoops of the Resources Management Act. And rightly so.

We'd have to provide experts' reports, consult the neighbours, be inspected by council officers and be subject to public hearings and so on and so forth. And as far as coastal pohutukawa were concerned, our chances of a removal would be slim.

The Navy, on the other hand, has it easy. More than a century ago, the land it occupies was acquired for defence purposes.

As a result, all the sailors have to do to get around local planning requirements is to say the work that it wants to do is for "defence purposes" and the battle is all but over. Though not quite.

They do have to provide the council with "an outline plan" of the work proposed.

The council can, in return, suggest changes. If the Navy decides to ignore these recommendations, the council can appeal to the Environment Court.

In this case there is dispute whether an outline plan was submitted.

The Navy's approach came through Ms Meyle's letter of last October. It was referred to a council arborist who confirmed the trees were in a precarious situation and that the works should proceed as emergency works.

Rob Andrews, the council's team leader, major consents, now says the letter fulfilled the requirements of an outline plan of works.

His political boss, Mr Cayford, who was unaware of the letter, rejects this. He says the letter fails to state the number of trees it was planned to remove, or the fact that 1200 cu m was to be cut off the cliff face.

What the letter does say is that "tension cracks in the cliff line on Calliope Rd" had been identified.

These were caused by seasonal wetting and drying and resultant creep. To prevent soils falling onto small diesel and Avcat tanks below, the Navy planned to cut the slip back to a 2.5:1 slope over the 40m section.

This would involve "the removal of all vegetation and several pohutukawa."

Replanting would take place behind the new cliff edge.

It wasn't until the March 14, 2003, letter to householders from the Navy, that the public learned the extent of the planned works.

On Tuesday, the Devonport Community Board called on the Navy to delay the work until the city council re-examined the situation. The Navy ignored their neighbour's request and on Thursday let rip with the chainsaws.

Perhaps the trees were all about to come tumbling down, one after the other, like Saddam Hussein's palaces.

If so, why the need for the secrecy? Why the need for exemptions from the laws of the land?

If the aims and obligations of the Resource Management Act are good enough for you and me, then it's high time that Government departments set a good example and were made to follow the same rules.