Dear Board Members
Without public consultation your predecessors planted 4 Magnolia Grandiflora directly in front of Stockade Hill, and of course they are already interfering in its priceless views. Recently we urged you again to remove them, so you asked Council officers for advice – and confirmed the trees will stay put. Thanks for sending us that Council report, which you refused to give us until we threatened to use the Official Information Act. But now you are barring us from fully addressing your public meetings on the subject. Having read the report, we understand why you didn’t want anyone to see it:
it is a complete whitewash, going to laughable lengths to support your stance. Its claims include:
1. The trees won’t damage the views because they grow to only 6m. Wrong: as juveniles they are already interfering, and our sources say they can grow to 12m. Remember: Stockade Hill only rises to max 8m above the road.
2. Once planted, no tree can be moved. Patently wrong. Check Council’s own wholesale slaughter of Auckland’s Urban Forest, and the hundreds of other trees a week they allow to be removed.
3. It would cost $20K to move them!
4. They are essential as “cooling shade” for Crawford Reserve visitors. Wrong: check the compass: their shadows fall towards the road.
5. This genus provides “pollution mitigation for pedestrians and park users”: Wrong again. They produce significant litter: irritant pollen; flowers, cones and seeds; and they moult big tough leaves year-round.
6. The trees are now too valuable to part with – an unsupported book value of $12,757.31. Wrong. Common sense, please: they have no realisable value.
7. The trees also have political value: they have acquired untouchable “Carbon Credits” against Global Warming! More: “as they grow” their Carbon Credits will increase “exponential(ly)”! But doesn’t that mean an equivalent exponential increase in size? These are the wrong trees.
8. In contradiction, the report also says the trees can be trimmed! They are already tall with long trunks, so it’s too late anyway, but if we did, the tortured things would be lollipops. Wrong tree again.
9. The Magnolias are “protected”. Big time wrong: if Council can sacrifice our local trees, including the 7 doomed Pohutukawa at 34 Moore Street, and if the Tupuna Maunga Authority can remove thousands of non-native trees from the volcanoes, then nothing is protected.
Finally, for the report to suggest that it’s unethical to protect views, and that to undo the error of planting these heritage-destroying trees in front of Stockade Hill will set a precedent, is hugely wrong. Members of the Board: you are deliberately allowing these inappropriately planted trees to damage a heritage icon: this is the actual precedent. Reverse it and replace them. For us, flowers beds or dainty shrubs would be lovely. We’ll help, and next week will be fine, thanks, before it gets even worse.
Howick Ratepayers and Residents Committee and its AGM 15/8/2
