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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2022-05-18 Daily Xml
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Unley Tree Canopy project

Mr PISONI (Unley) (15:30): Today, I would like to speak about an innovative program that was introduced to Unley by the Mayor of Unley, Michael Hewitson, about combating the loss of tree canopy on private land. We know that Unley is one of the smallest electorates in the 47 House of Assembly seats. One of the reasons for that—geographically, I am talking about now—is because of the very small amount of public open space, which means we rely heavily on private open space for tree canopy for wildlife, shade and the experiences we have in Unley.

We have seen a dramatic decrease in tree canopy on private land in Unley. Particularly as the former Labor government's Rau planning reforms have come into action, we have seen subdivisions, extensions and pools going into properties. We have seen trees removed to make room for either bigger houses replacing smaller houses or extensions on older houses that remain.

Consequently, the council have developed a plan that they call their Very High-Resolution Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) project, which enables them to capture and monitor the amount of canopy on each property, whether it grows or whether it has been removed. They have the support of many of the south-eastern suburban councils to trial a project where they are able to impose an incentive penalty scheme for new developments for those development approvals that would result in an increase in the built footprint of the property. This would trigger the scheme.

Examples of this would include two or more dwellings on one allotment, alterations and additions, inground swimming pools, verandahs and garages. In other words, when trees are removed, there is an incentive to consider redesigning or, alternatively, not removing all the trees, leaving them there to encourage more tree canopy. When a development application is lodged, an assessment of tree canopy over the property will be made against a target canopy cover of 15 per cent, and if the target is not met the property owner would be charged an additional 10 per cent of their rates until such time as the 15 per cent canopy cover is achieved on the property.

Conversely, if the 15 per cent target is met in the time of the development, additional charges will not be imposed. Consequently, we will have a situation where there will be a value put on that canopy to encourage more innovative design. We already have in the planning code the need for 'plantable soil', but there is no incentive, if you like, for that soil to be planted with trees. This has broad community support in Unley.

It requires the intervention of the planning minister and I was very pleased with the warm reception that the mayor and the CEO of Unley received from the former member for Heysen as the planning minister was discussing the details of this project and looking for the approval of the minister for such a plan to be implemented. The approval process through the Planning, Development and Infrastructure Act 2016 and approval for the minister relates to:

An approval of the Minister that relates to a scheme to be established by a joint planning board or a council may be given on conditions specified by the Minister.

If the scheme is established under the system, there are certain obligations of the minister. I am very keen to have a chat to the new planning minister and support this project being rolled out in Unley as a trial project. It is anticipated that it may be a trial for about 10 years to assess the full impact, but with 3 per cent public open space one of the benefits of this scheme is that extra funding will be available for the council to purchase land to plant trees.

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