Services / Planning and permits
Lifecycle service
Address the tree issues before they cause delays.
When a tree is protected by an overlay or a Local Law, or your proposal affects one, the Council will not decide the application without an arboricultural assessment. A thin report, or none, results in a request for more information, a delay, or a refusal. We prepare the assessment that the permit application relies on, and we stand behind it through the Council's process and at VCAT if it goes that far.
Why it matters
A permit relies on the tree assessment
Trees are a permit trigger, not a detail. Where an overlay or a Local Law applies, removing, lopping, or building near a tree requires the Council's consent, and the Council is the responsible authority deciding whether to grant it. What it decides on is the arboricultural assessment in front of it.
Most applications that stall do so for a few reasons: the tree information is missing or weak, a removal is asserted rather than justified, or the proposal is shown to harm a tree it was meant to retain. Each one invites a request for further information, which stops the application clock, or an objection that hardens into a refusal.
We write the assessment to answer those questions before they are asked. Every tree surveyed and given its retention priority, every removal justified on arboricultural grounds, every retained tree shown to be workable around the proposal. The Council gets an application it can approve, not a gap it has to follow up.
How it works
From trigger to permit
Three stages, the same arborist on the project from the first feasibility question to the permit conditions.
Planning and permits cover the front of our project lifecycle: feasibility, the arboricultural assessment, and the permit decision. If the matter is contested at VCAT, our independent review and expert evidence take it from there.
Before you lodge, or before you buy
Permit triggers and feasibility
We check what controls apply to the tree, a planning overlay, a Local Law, or nothing, and tell you early whether the removal or the works you want are achievable and what the Council will require to grant them. It is the cheapest advice on the project, because it shapes the design before the design is set.
With the application
The assessment that addresses the requirements
We survey every tree in play, set its condition and retention priority, and assess what the proposal does to it. Removals may be justified on arboricultural grounds, and retention of trees is shown to be workable. Set out a plan, and the Council can read against the proposal.
Through the Council's process
Through Council to a decision
We respond to the Council's requests for further information, address objections regarding the tree questions, and shape permit conditions that are reasonable and can be met on site. If the permit is refused or called in, the same assessment carries into review and VCAT evidence without starting again.
Local Law
Removing a tree under a Local Law
Not every controlled tree sits under the planning scheme. Many Councils protect trees on private land through a Local Law, which requires Council consent to remove or prune them, even where no planning overlay applies. The test is usually the tree's health, structure and amenity, not a development proposal, and the decision criteria are different.
We prepare the tree-removal review of the Local Law application needs: an independent assessment of the tree's condition and the grounds for removal or retention, written to the Council's requirements, so the application is determined on the evidence and the decision criteria, not sent back for more information.
Why our work can be relied upon
An assessment that withstands objection
A report is often read by people looking for its weak point: an objector, a Council officer, or another arborist. Ours is always written to justify a position.
Independent
We act for Councils and for the applicants they assess. The assessment reads the same, whoever commissioned it, which is why Councils accept it and why it holds when an objector tests it.
Justified, not asserted
Removals are justified on arboricultural grounds and retentions are shown to be workable, each tied to the tree's condition and retention priority. A finding the Council can check is a finding it can rely on.
VCAT Experience
If the decision is reviewed, the assessment submitted with the application is the evidence we defend at the Tribunal. See the record.
Related services
Often needed alongside
Have a tree that requires a permit?
Talk to us before you lodge. We will tell you what the overlay or Local Law means for the tree, and what the Council will need to approve it.
Discuss your project