218 Charles Street Launceston

REPRESENTATION: DA0031/2025 Removal of Bunya Pine Tree ... 218 Charles St.

Firstly, it needs to be said that this tree over a very long time has gathered around it a rather large Community of Ownership and Interest and in evidence of that the question of its management falls to the city’s Councillors. Councillors are the representatives of those who claim a layer of ‘ownership and/or interest’. Consistent with this I make this representation asking Councillors to consider several important issues pertinent to this tree’s status in its CULTURALlandscape given that it is a ‘significant tree’ within it.

Moreover, for many this tree is something of a HERITAGE LANDMARKtree for Launceston and its loss, should that happen now, would represent a significant loss far beyond any pragmatic concerns without diminishing them and their relative significance.

Somehow the words of Napoleon Bonaparte resonate here … “Nothing is more difficult, and therefore more precious, than to be able to decide.”

CONSIDERATIONS

• The tree’s age is not insignificant in that it was deliberately planted to be a feature in Launceston’s evolving CULTURALlandscape in a colonial cum settler context and possibly a century ago; and

• In the time that that this tree has stood where it stands it has been, and remains to be, a PLACEmaker and a PLACEmarker; and

• The tree’s ‘values’ are held by and defined by a network of networked people who share in the ‘pace’s’ PLACEmakeing and the PLACEmarking; and

• Currently, one of the tree’s most significant values is the CO2 invested in its materiality in the context of the ‘climate emergency’ that is upon us and that this impacts upon every human, in every way, and all the time – in reality and symbolically; and

• The tree’s ‘relative health’, given that it is endemic origin, is sound and healthy and does not present any apparent risk of becoming diseased and thus enhancing any risk factor in prospect; and

• The tree’s ‘impact’ upon its adjoining built structures may well be deemed to significant but it is an open question as to it being manageable or unmanageable and especially so given the lack of an engineer’s report as a component of the development application. Indeed, as this DA is presented Councillors might well this as a ‘truth-by-assertion’;  and

• The tree’s ‘impact’ upon boundary structures and adjoining streetscaping has not been deemed to be either manageable or unmanageable and in what context and thus subjective aesthetics to one side this is not a compelling factor worthy of consideration; and

• The ‘impact’ of the tree’s large cones falling and injuring a hapless passer-bye has been asserted albeit that many arborists will tell you that the risk of injury from falling limbs and the cones of many conifers is something in the order of one in five million. In any event the mitigation of the risk here is quite achievable and has been proven as so elsewhere; and

• The ‘proponent/s’ of the tree’s removal have not offered to address in the way the loss of public amenity etc. in any way, whereas in Adelaide that city’s Council has imposed restrictions with ‘cash off-sets’ payable for the purpose tree planting for carbon sequestration on another site – albeit the $amount is relatively small and not linked to the litreage of canopy cover lost; and

• The ‘impact’ of the loss of the tree’s canopy in this case is significant and calculated as $1per litre the mitigating compensation would be substantial; and

• Given that this property apparently changed ownership relatively recently the owner must have been aware of any clear and present risk at that time and especially so currently as apparently Council has denied approval for this tree’s removal previously.

218 Charles Street is managed as a visitor’s accommodation venue which adds some context to this application. The building has been occupied by various businesses over time and thus as a heritage building is concerned it has accumulated a significant cohort of people who have developed relationships with ‘the place’ with this tree being a component of those relationships.

All things considered, Councillors are faced yet again with making a determination relative to this tree on behalf of the constituencies they represent, and ideally mindful of the independent expert advice Council’s Management is bound to provide under the provisions of SECTION 65 of the Local Govt. Act.

In conclusion I ask councillors to be very mindful of everything that is at stake relative to this tree and all the symbolism there is in trees and their PLACEmaking determination on behalf of the communities they were elected to represent along with the proponent in this instance. Poignantly, this tree with its ‘heritage’ status unavoidably stands as a significant representative of trees in Launceston’s CULTURALlandscape and thus precedence set here will background future decision making in the urban environment that will have ‘trickle-down’ effects elsewhere and decades ahead.

IMPORTANTLY WHATEVER COUNCILLORS DETERMINE IN REGARD TO THIS SIGNIFICANT HERITAGE TREE IT WILL BE A BENCHMARK AGAINST WHICH

FUTURE DEVELOPMENT APPLICATIONS OF THIS KIND CAN BE

AND ARE EVER LIKELY TO BE MEASURED

CLICK HERE TO GO THE ENTIRE DEVELOPMENTAPPLICATION

YES Bunya Cones are large, however if removed at the juvenile stage, or at any time before ripening,  the risk of large nuts falling on unsuspecting pedestrians is and can be mitigated.  Drones have been deployed in similar circumstances and there are anecdotal reports that comes from this tree have been removed from a crane. In any event has there been a incident reported in the life of this tree where the has been an injury cased by a falling cone? Has a car or any other been damaged since this tree has born cones?

Additionally, aborists have other risk mitigation strategies and technologies at their disposal that might well be used if this significant heritage tree presents an untenable risk sometime in the future.   

SCHROL DOWN

ABBREVIATED DA ATTACHMENTS

                                                              

FROM WIKIPEDIA ... Araucaria bidwillii .... Araucaria bidwillii, commonly known as the bunya pine (/ˈbʌnjə/),[4] banya[5] or bunya-bunya, is a large evergreen coniferous tree in the family Araucariaceae which is endemic to Australia. Its natural range is southeast Queensland with two very small, disjunct populations in northeast Queensland's World Heritage listed Wet Tropics. There are many planted specimens on the Atherton Tableland, in New South Wales, and around the Perth metropolitan area, and it has also been widely planted in other parts of the world. They are very tall trees – the tallest living individual is in Bunya Mountains National Park and was reported by Robert Van Pelt in January 2003 to be 51.5 m (169 ft) in height.

Bunya pine

Conservation status
Least Concern (NCA)[1]
Araucaria bidwillii will grow to a height of 50 m (160 ft) with a single unbranched trunk up to 1.5 m (4 ft 11 in) diameter, which has dark brown or black flaky bark.[6][7][8][9] The branches are produced in whorls at regular intervals along the trunk, with leaf-bearing branchlets crowded at their ends.[8] The branches are held more or less horizontally – those towards the top of the trunk may be somewhat ascending, those on the lowest section of the trunk may be somewhat drooping. This arrangement gives the tree a very distinctive egg-shaped silhouette.

The leaves are small and rigid with a sharp tip which can easily penetrate the skin.[10] They are narrowly triangular, broad at the base and sessile (without a stem).[6][10] They measure up to 5 cm (2.0 in) long by 1 cm (0.4 in) wide with fine longitudinal venation, glossy green above and paler underneath.[6][10][9] The leaf arrangement is both distichous and decussate (referred to as secondarily distichous) – that is, one pair of leaves are produced on the twig opposite each other, and the next pair above is rotated around the twig 90° to them, and so on.[6]

The cones are terminal, the male (or pollen) cone is a spike up to 20 cm (7.9 in) long which matures around October to November.[7][8][9][10] The female (or seed) cone is much larger, reaching up to 30 cm (12 in) long and 20 cm (7.9 in) wide, which is roughly equivalent to a rugby ball.[7][8][9][10] At maturity, which occurs from December through to March,[7][8] female cones are green with 50–100 pointed segments, each of which encloses a seed, and they can weigh up to 10 kg.[8][9][11][12] Both seed and pollen cones are some of the largest of all conifer species.[13]

The edible seeds measure between 2.5 cm (1.0 in) and 5 cm (2.0 in) long and are ovoid to long-elliptic.[6][7][8][10]

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