Storm damage and fallen trees in the Yarra Valley
If anyone is hurt or trapped, call 000. If a fallen tree has damaged the house or a vehicle, or is stopping you getting in or out, call VICSES. VICSES says cutting down trees that are still standing is a job for a professional, so leave split or leaning trees alone and keep people well back. In June 2021 a storm brought down thousands of trees across the Yarra Ranges, and VICSES received more than 9,100 requests for help across Victoria.
Tree removal in the Yarra Valley: what's local
Towns with a rural hinterland
Healesville (3777), Yarra Glen (3775), Coldstream (3770), Yarra Junction (3797) and Warburton (3799) are all in Yarra Ranges. Healesville, Yarra Glen, Yarra Junction and Seville are large neighbourhood centres, some of them serving the rural hinterland around them.
Wine, food and farmland
Yarra Ranges says the Yarra Valley is known locally and internationally for food and wine, and about 30,000 hectares of its Green Wedge is farmed. So a lot of the valley's trees stand on working farms and vineyards rather than suburban blocks.
Mountain Ash country
Yarra Ranges National Park, around Healesville and Warburton, has Mountain Ash growing above tree ferns and Myrtle Beech, and its streams feed the reservoirs Melbourne drinks from. Big forest trees near a house or a driveway are a very different job from a suburban gum.
Fire, landslip and flood
Yarra Ranges' planning scheme says many of its communities face bushfire, landslip and flooding, and it discourages new homes where the defendable space would mean clearing significant indigenous vegetation.
Tree removal permits in the Yarra Valley
Native vegetation. Clause 52.17 needs a planning permit to remove, destroy or lop native vegetation, dead native vegetation included. Yarra Ranges says that on properties over 4000 square metres, a proposal affecting native vegetation will most likely need a permit.
Bushfire clearing. The 10/30 rule lets you clear trees within 10 metres of a home, and other vegetation within 30 metres, but Yarra Ranges says it only applies in a designated bushfire prone area, and only to a house built or permitted before 10 September 2009. Not all of the state's bushfire exemptions apply in Yarra Ranges, because clause 51.03 of its planning scheme applies there.
Overlays. Yarra Ranges' landscape overlays, such as SLO22, which names Healesville, can need a permit to lop as well as to remove. Council also says a completely dead tree may need a permit.
Our land clearing and bushfire clearing pages go further. For your own address, call Yarra Ranges' Planning team.
Questions to ask an arborist in the Yarra Valley
- Check if the property is in a designated bushfire prone area, using council's online mapping.
- Confirm when the house was built or approved, against the 10 September 2009 date.
- Find out which overlays apply, and whether the trees are native or on council's environmental weeds list.
- Get written permission before clearing anything on a neighbour's side of the fence.
- Keep any tree work clear of powerlines: Yarra Ranges says the lines serving your property are yours to keep clear, and faults go to AusNet.
Hiring an arborist in the Yarra Valley
Treat every big native tree as protected until council says otherwise, and get the bushfire question answered in writing before summer. On a rural block, ask the arborist to walk the whole property with you, not just the one tree, and to say what can be done now and what needs a permit first.