Storm damage and fallen trees in Belgrave
If anyone is hurt or trapped, call 000. If a tree has damaged the house or blocks your only way out, VICSES helps. Stay out from under hanging branches, treat any fallen line as live and keep 8 to 10 metres away, and leave trees that are still standing to an arborist once the road is safe. The June 2021 storm brought down thousands of trees across the Yarra Ranges.
Tree removal in Belgrave: what's local
Mountain Ash next door
Sherbrooke Forest, north of Belgrave, is a major remnant of the original tall mountain forest, with Mountain Ash and fern gullies. Yarra Ranges' planning scheme says forest trees like these spread into private gardens and road edges across the ranges.
Houses in the trees
SLO22, the foothills landscape overlay, describes Belgrave's hillsides as houses and grounds standing in a forested hills landscape. The first farms here were hewn out of heavily timbered slopes, and the slopes are still tree covered.
Puffing Billy's corridor
Belgrave is where Puffing Billy sets off, and a separate overlay (SLO3) protects the forest views from the line. It notes narrow roads, often without kerb or channel, which limits where a truck, chipper or crane can set up.
No sewer in places
Many Dandenong Ranges homes aren't connected to reticulated sewerage, so a septic tank and its pipes may sit near the tree. Before You Dig plans won't show private pipes, so point them out before any stump grinding.
AusNet's lines
AusNet runs the network across Melbourne's east. Never touch a tree that's on a line, or go near it.
Tree removal permits in Belgrave
People in the hills often ask for a tree to be lopped. Arborists treat lopping (cutting branches back to stubs) as poor practice, and the Australian pruning standard lists it as unacceptable, because the regrowth is weakly attached and the tree often declines.
There's a rules reason to be careful too. Yarra Ranges' landscape overlays need a permit to lop protected vegetation, and clause 51.03, which covers land under the Upper Yarra Valley and Dandenong Ranges Regional Strategy Plan, needs a permit to remove, destroy or lop any vegetation unless its schedule says otherwise.
That's also why some of Victoria's bushfire clearing exemptions don't apply in the Yarra Ranges. The 10/30 rule only helps if the house is in a designated bushfire prone area and was built or approved before 10 September 2009, so ask council before relying on it. Our guide to Victoria's bushfire clearing rules explains the rest.
Hiring an arborist in Belgrave
We'd call Yarra Ranges' planning team with photos, then have an arborist check the tree's health and lean before the windy months. Thinning or reducing a big gum can be an option where removal isn't, and the quote should explain how the crew will work a steep, narrow site.