Perth council offers home owners an annual ‘tree bonus’. But there’s a catch

Home owners in the City of Canning could be paid thousands of dollars each year simply by retaining large trees on their property in an attempt to protect Perth’s dwindling tree canopy.

The council on Tuesday voted 6-1 in favour of residents receiving $200 a year for each significant tree on their property they register, potentially netting big landowners thousands.

The new policy would incentivise landowners to retain large trees. Credit: iStock

City of Canning Mayor Patrick Hall told Radio 6PR that once a tree was on the register, it could not be knocked down without council approval.

“We’re incentivising people to preserve trees on their own private property,” he said.

However, Hall, who was the only councillor to vote against the policy, said there were some legal uncertainties about how the register would be applied to future home owners if a property was sold or developed.

“If an owner wanted to develop that property down the line and was needing to remove those trees from the registry, we have no idea whether or not it would be successfully defended by the city,” he said.

A report presented to the city revealed property owners were reluctant to put their trees on the registry due to the perception it would reduce the value of their property.

The city already has 165 significant trees on its register, but these are all on public land on streets or in parks.

In 2020, the council’s tree canopy cover was 9.9 per cent, representing a significant loss of historical canopy. The city wants to increase the coverage by 22.3 per cent by 2039, however forecasts predict it will actually decline by 24.3 per cent over that time.

Two other Perth councils have already passed policies to provide financial incentives to home owners to retain large trees on their properties.

The City of Bayswater offers up to $2000 per property every five years to place their trees on a registry, however not a single person has added a tree since the scheme was introduced last year.

The City of Vincent offers the same financial incentive, with nine trees added to the register since 2021.

Unlike in other states, WA councils have no say over whether a private landowner removes a tree on their private land.

The state government has promised to plant one million trees across Perth by 2035 in an attempt to double the metropolitan area’s tree canopy to 30 per cent by 2040.

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