City of Banyule

Tree controls in Banyule

Banyule is structured differently from its neighbours and it trips people up. The local law protects trees during building works, not from removal. If you want to take a tree out in Banyule, the control you are dealing with is the planning scheme.

Ivanhoe, Ivanhoe East, Heidelberg, Eaglemont, Rosanna, Viewbank, Montmorency, Greensborough

At a glance

Local law: Banyule Community Local Law 2025, commenced 16 April 2025. It revoked General Local Law No. 1
What the local law does NOT do: It does not prohibit an owner removing a significant tree on their own land
What it does do: Clause 3.13 lets an Authorised Officer direct a security bond to safeguard vegetation during building works, including on adjoining land
Clause 3.14: Builders must establish and maintain a Tree Protection Zone around Council trees in the nature strip
Penalties: 10 penalty units for individuals and 20 for corporations, roughly $2,090 and $4,180, on each of 3.13 and 3.14
The actual removal control: Environmental Significance Overlay Schedule 4, Significant Trees and Areas of Vegetation. A permit is required for trees specified in the table to the clause
Basis: Schedule listed, not threshold based. If your tree is not in the ESO4 table it is not caught by ESO4
Critical root zone: ESO4 defines it as extending no less than five metres beyond the drip line. That is not the AS 4970 calculation
Report trigger: Required where 4 or more trees are involved, any tree is on Council's Significant Tree Register, or the work is development related
Permit fees: Single tree $233.10, two to four trees $466.20, five or more $1,537.00, single tree pruning $116.50
Canopy targets: 30% across all suburbs by 2050, with no loss in suburbs already above the target

Drawn from Council's published material as at August 2026. Councils update without notice, so confirm anything you are relying on for a lodgement.

Banyule keeps two registers and only one triggers a permit

Banyule keeps a significant tree register in two different places and they do different jobs. The ESO4 table in the planning scheme is the one that triggers a planning permit. Schedule 3 to the Community Local Law 2025 is a separate list attached to the local law. Do not conflate them, and do not assume a tree on one is on the other.

Amendment C119bany, gazetted 13 October 2022, added a further 94 trees to ESO4 permanently. Check the current table on VicPlan rather than a cached PDF, because the copy Council hosts appears to predate that amendment.

Banyule's published guidance still mandates the superseded standard

Council's tree protection page states that "Australian Standard AS4970/2009 is the primary guidance for preparing arboricultural reports". Its Tree Management Framework cites the same edition, and Council hosts a full copy of the 2009 standard on its own website as a planning reference document.

AS 4970 was revised in 2025. The zone calculations did not change, but the terminology and the reporting structure did. The workable answer is to report to the current standard while satisfying the document Council names, with the equivalence stated in one line the first time each term appears. If Banyule cannot line your report up against the document it names, expect a request for further information.

Banyule defines the root zone its own way

ESO4 exempts works outside the critical root zone, which it defines as extending no less than five metres beyond the drip line. That is a Banyule specific definition and it is not the AS 4970 calculation, which sets the notional root zone from Diameter at Standard Height.

On a big Eaglemont oak those two give very different areas, and you need both. The ESO4 exemption turns on Council's definition. Whether the tree comes through the works turns on the standard's calculation. My reports set out each one against the question it answers.

Council pages still cite a law revoked over a year ago

Banyule's tree pages refer to enforcement under "General Local Law No. 1". That instrument was revoked on 16 April 2025 when the Community Local Law 2025 commenced. The tree permit pages also make no mention of Clause 52.37 at all, and Council's only 52.37 material is a news item from 1 October 2025 which omits the 1.4 m measurement height, says "front boundary" where the clause says narrowest street frontage, and names no zones.

A tree bond with no published amount

Clause 3.13 lets an Authorised Officer direct a builder to pay a security bond against damage to vegetation, including vegetation on adjoining land. It is discretionary and Banyule publishes no schedule of amounts. Ring Council and ask what the number will be for your site before you price the job, because you cannot budget against a figure nobody has published.

No net loss at suburb level

Banyule's Urban Forest Strategy 2023 to 2033 targets 30% canopy across all suburbs by 2050, with no loss in suburbs already above the target. That matters in Ivanhoe East, Eaglemont and Viewbank, where canopy is already high. It commits Council to holding the line suburb by suburb, and a council arborist can reasonably hold your application against it.

What I do in Banyule

Tree Removal Report

Council has asked for an arborist report before it will consider removing your tree. This is that report, and it is usually the whole job.

Residential

Arboricultural Impact Assessment

What councils ask for when your works reach into a tree's root zone. Each tree assessed, the zones calculated to AS 4970:2025, and the encroachment measured and justified.

Development

Clause 52.37 Canopy Tree Report

The provision that arrived in September 2025 and now catches trees nothing else reached. Which of yours are caught, whether you need a permit, and what replacement planting you owe.

Residential · Planning

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Working on a site in Banyule?

Send the address and whatever plans you have. I will tell you which controls apply, what reports the permit path needs, and what each one costs, within one business day.

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