Council wants to increase fines for residents who breach local laws
THE COUNCIL covering some of Melbourne’s leafiest suburbs wants to slap anyone caught illegally removing trees with whopping $20,000 fines.
Inner East
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THE COUNCIL covering some of Melbourne’s leafiest suburbs wants to slap anyone caught illegally removing trees with whopping $20,000 fines.
Boroondara Council, which covers Camberwell, Canterbury and Glen Iris, wants to boost the current $2000 penalty for breaching a local law to $20,000.
Their call for tougher penalties comes after a significant spike in illegal tree removals across the leafy municipality.
The council also won support at the Municipal Association of Victoria’s annual meeting on Friday.
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The council launched 159 investigations into illegal tree removals last year, up from 66 in 2016.
Mayor Jim Parke said some offenders had even poisoned trees in an attempt to avoid detection and punishment.
He said the current $2000 fine for committing such an offence was “insufficient” to act as a deterrent to offenders.
“Every year, council receives a significant number of complaints from the community about canopy trees being removed without a permit under the local law,” he said.
“Illegal tree removal is becoming a greater issue and therefore higher fines to provide a greater deterrent are required.”
The council has the ability to prosecute an offender in the Magistrates’ Court, which could result in a conviction, in addition to the fine.
But Cr Parke said It was both costly and time consuming to regularly prosecute alleged offenders in the Magistrates Court.
“Council’s experience to date is that Magistrates are reluctant to convict offenders, even when found guilty, and that fines rarely exceed $2000,” he added.
Cr Parke said ill-maintenance of properties, obstruction on council-controlled land such as overhanging branches and occupying council-controlled land without a permit were other common breaches of local laws in Boroondara.
The council lobbied previous State Governments to amend the Local Government Act 1989 to increase fines for offences under the Local Law, to no effect.
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