Tree Removal
in Ryde
Two measurements decide whether a Ryde tree is your business or the council’s. City of Ryde’s Development Control Plan 2014 Part 9.5 treats vegetation as exempt where it is less than 4 metres in height and/or less than 150 millimetres in trunk diameter measured at breast height, 1.4 metres above ground level. An established tree well over both marks is a prescribed tree, and council requires a Tree Pruning and Removal Permit before a prescribed tree is cleared or pruned. A tree over one mark but under the other sits in a grey area that wording leaves open, so put the two measurements to council before anyone starts cutting. The paperwork is a Tree Management Application, with a development application required instead where the tree stands on a heritage item or inside a heritage conservation area. The state sets the frame and the council fills it in: State Environmental Planning Policy (Biodiversity and Conservation) 2021 sets out at Chapter 2 to protect the biodiversity values of trees and other vegetation in non-rural areas, so what applies on your block is set by the City of Ryde and not by anything Sydney-wide.
What grows on the block follows the ground under it. Council describes the area as a transition landscape where the Hornsby Plateau begins to slope to the south-west, and its waterways have cut through the Wianamatta shale to the underlying Hawkesbury sandstone, which is why a shale flat and a gully slope a few streets apart carry different trees and very different access. The shale country is turpentine and ironbark country. The NSW listing determination names Sydney Turpentine-Ironbark Forest as occurring on the Hornsby Plateau at locations between Ryde, Arcadia and Castle Hill, gives its dominant trees as Syncarpia glomulifera and Eucalyptus paniculata, turpentine and grey ironbark, and lists it as a critically endangered ecological community. Council records Blue Gum High Forest here too, critically endangered in its own right and carrying a national listing besides. Alongside those remnants sits a planted layer: brush box, and to a lesser extent camphor laurel, went into this council area through the 1920s and 1930s, with tallowwood, Wallangarra white gum and peppermints added in the 1970s.
There is one more list worth checking before you ring anyone. Council keeps a Significant Tree Register covering trees in public spaces and on privately owned properties, and for a listed tree a request for removal will only be approved through a development application, while routine maintenance such as pruning still needs a Tree Management Application with the fee waived. Three mature avenue plantings of Lophostemon confertus, brush box, are on it at Richards Avenue, Tarrants Avenue and Auld Avenue in Eastwood. A listed tree in the back yard changes the job from a form into an application, and finding that out after you have booked a crew is the expensive way to learn it. The listings below cover Ryde and the suburbs around it. Check what each crew is qualified for, then price the same tree with the same access more than once.
What tree removal costs in Ryde
Prices above include GST and are working national figures, not quotes gathered in this suburb. Around Ryde the variable that moves them is underfoot. On the fall toward the Lane Cove and Parramatta rivers, where the waterways have cut down through the shale into the sandstone beneath, a straightforward removal turns into a rigging job, because there is nowhere to drop a stem and nowhere to park the chipper. Flat shale streets with a driveway down the side are the cheap case. Overhead lines change who can quote rather than how long the work takes: the code keeps untrained hands out of any tree sitting inside 3 metres of an electric line, and away from limbs that could swing into that gap mid-cut, which puts the job with a trained crew, and that is a smaller pool of contractors. Then there is the tail nobody budgets for. Council requires replacement trees of minimum 75 litre stock at three to one for any tree approved for removal, with a mandatory twelve month follow-up inspection after planting, which is real money on top of the removal. Council’s own charge is set per tree and there is a further fee for the urgent tree assessment service; read the amounts off the form on the day you apply, because they reset each 1 July.
Ryde tree removal, stump grinding and arborist reports
How to choose a qualified arborist in Ryde
Measure the trunk at 1.4 metres, not at the base
Take both measurements before you ring anyone, and take the girth one at chest height. Council’s exemption is written around vegetation less than 4 metres in height and/or less than 150 millimetres in trunk diameter measured at breast height, 1.4 metres above ground level. Measuring at the ground instead, where a trunk flares, will make a modest tree look like a protected one and send you into an application you may not need. It cuts the other way too, so get the tape out rather than eyeballing it. Where the wording of the exemption is doing work on your particular tree, ask council directly before the crew arrives.
Three replacement trees, not one
This is the Ryde detail that catches people mid-quote. Council will require replacement trees of minimum 75 litre stock to be planted at a rate of three to one for any tree approved for removal, and a mandatory twelve month follow-up inspection then applies after the initial planting of the approved advanced species, to confirm it remains healthy and intact. Three advanced trees cost real money and take real room. Work out where they can physically go while you are still deciding whether to remove the tree at all, because on a small block the answer sometimes changes the decision.
A listed tree is a different application entirely
Check the register before anything else. Council keeps a Significant Tree Register covering trees on public land and on privately owned properties, and where a tree is listed a request for removal will only be approved through a development application. Maintenance work such as pruning still goes through a Tree Management Application, with the fee waived for listed trees. The register also carries whole avenues, including three mature brush box plantings at Richards Avenue, Tarrants Avenue and Auld Avenue in Eastwood. A quote written on the assumption of a permit is worthless if the tree needs a DA.
There is a three working day lane for a dangerous tree
Ryde handles imminent risk up front rather than after the event. Council recognises that an application to remove a tree posing an imminent risk to human life should be determined in an express manner, and its urgent tree assessment service aims to determine the application within three working days of receiving it, for an additional fee on top of the normal charge. That is worth knowing before someone talks you into cutting first and explaining later. A tree brought down onto a house or a road by weather is not an application at all; the NSW SES number for storm emergency assistance is 132 500.
Heritage sends the job through a different door
Where a heritage listing is in play, the approval path changes shape. For removal of trees on a heritage item, or inside a conservation area, council requires a development application rather than a permit. A DA is a longer and more documented process than a Tree Management Application, so establish which one applies before you compare prices. Two quotes that assume different approval paths are not comparable, and the cheaper one is usually the one that has assumed the easier path.
Ryde names the qualification it will accept
Ryde puts this in writing rather than leaving it to be inferred. Council will only accept reports from arborists with Australian Qualification Framework level 5 in Horticulture (Arboriculture) or equivalent, and the plan requires the arborist justifying clearing, pruning or removal to have completed AQF Level 5, Diploma of Arboriculture. That is the consultant who writes the report, not the crew who does the cutting. Cutting and rigging work is Certificate III, AQF Level 3. Ask which of the two is turning up for which part, and ask to see the insurance certificate rather than hear a number, since no business is registered with Arboriculture Australia below $5 million of public liability. Our guide to loppers and arborists covers what the difference looks like on site.
Frequently asked questions
Arborists in Ryde
The arborists and tree services below work across Ryde and the neighbouring City of Ryde suburbs. Each entry carries a phone number, the work that business takes on and its trading hours. Ask each one the same two questions, what it is qualified to do and how it plans to get the timber out, before you compare the prices.
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