Tree puzzle goes to court

The amendment to the Resource Management Act worries local authorities whose District Plans have maps showing clusters of untouchable trees, such as pohutukawa. File photo / Northern Advocate

The Environment Court is being asked to clear up nationwide confusion about whether all trees in urban groves survive the Government's scrubbing of blanket protection rules from the beginning of next year.

The Government intended to save tree owners nationally the cost of thousands of permits a year to remove or trim.

But the amendment to the Resource Management Act worries local authorities whose District Plans have maps showing clusters of untouchable trees, such as pohutukawa, on private coastal and gully sites.

They are unsure whether those plans' rules giving general protection will stand if trees are not specifically identified.

Adding more notable individual trees to the 3690 in the plan would be expensive and difficult to complete before protection expires on January 1.

Yesterday, the court began hearing Auckland Council's bid for a declaratory finding to keep applying some protection rules in North Shore and Waitakere City.

Council lawyer Heather Ash said the legislation provided an exception for rules relating to a tree or group of trees specifically identified in District Plans. However, the court must interpret whether the exception applied to existing district plans.

The court's decision would guide the council on the types of tree protection rules that could be included in future changes to regional planning documents.