Clause 52.37 canopy trees: a decision tree for builders
Amendment VC289 dropped this into every Victorian planning scheme on 15 September 2025. It can require a planning permit to remove a tree where nothing else would have triggered one, and it has caught a great many projects that were already designed.
What is covered
1. Is your tree a canopy tree?
Three tests, and it must meet all three. Fail any one and the clause does not reach it.
Circumference, not diameter
This trips people constantly. 0.5 m circumference is roughly a 159 mm diameter trunk, which is a small tree. If you read it as diameter you will wrongly conclude that half the trees on your site are exempt.
Measure around the trunk with a tape at 1.4 m. If the tree leans, measure along the stem rather than vertically.
2. Is your site in scope?
The clause applies in these zones:
- Mixed Use Zone
- Township Zone
- Residential Growth Zone
- General Residential Zone
- Neighbourhood Residential Zone
- Housing Choice and Transport Zone
It does not apply in the Low Density Residential Zone, and it does not apply in commercial or industrial zones.
Check the actual zone on VicPlan rather than assuming. Some council summaries of this clause are incomplete: Yarra's published page, for example, names only three of the six zones and omits Residential Growth and Housing Choice and Transport entirely.
3. The boundary tree trap
This section is worth reading carefully. It is the part I get asked about most.
If the land is vacant, the clause reaches any canopy tree anywhere on the lot.
If there is an existing dwelling, it reaches only boundary canopy trees. A boundary canopy tree is one with any part of its trunk within:
A boundary canopy tree does not get the exemptions that a canopy tree on an established site would otherwise have.
People assume that because there is already a house on the block the clause does not reach them. That holds for a tree in the middle of the yard. Move the same tree three metres off the back fence and it does not.
Narrowest street frontage, not front boundary
On a corner lot those are different lines, and the difference decides which trees are caught. Council summaries that say "front boundary" are being loose with it. Banyule's published news item does exactly that.
4. The exemptions
Clause 52.37-8 runs to about seventeen headings. Most are for infrastructure, extractive industry, railways, road safety and public land management, and will not touch a suburban block. The four that come up on residential sites are:
- Dead canopy trees. Dead, not declining
- Emergency works, where there is an immediate risk or access is needed for an emergency
- Lopping or pruning for maintenance, and this one has a limit, see below
- Declared noxious or environmental weeds, excluding Australian Dodder
The pruning exemption is capped at one third of the foliage
The clause exempts lopping or pruning for maintenance "provided no more than 1/3 of the foliage of the tree is lopped or pruned". Go past a third and you are no longer exempt and you need a permit. A crown reduction on a mature tree can pass a third without looking dramatic, so get it measured before the crew starts rather than after.
Councils publish this differently. Monash, for example, also treats work that drops the tree below 5 m in height or 4 m of canopy as outside the exemption, because at that point the tree stops being a canopy tree at all.
On the dead tree exemption: it means dead, not declining, and a tree that has dropped its leaves in July is not evidence of anything. Councils have seen the convenient dead tree before. If you are relying on it, have the tree assessed and get the finding in writing.
5. What council may and may not consider
Clause 52.37 says the responsible authority is exempt from the decision guidelines in Clause 65, which is the provision that would otherwise pull in the Municipal Planning Strategy and the planning policy framework. So the decision runs on the clause's own guidelines rather than on general planning policy, which changes what is worth putting in the application.
The clause lists a fair few guidelines. These are the ones that decide most residential applications:
| Guideline | What a good application says about it |
|---|---|
| Canopy contribution and urban heat | An honest account of what this tree contributes now, and what the replacement planting will contribute once it is grown |
| Tree health and stability | Assessed by a suitably qualified person, with the defects named rather than asserted |
| Damage to buildings | Actual evidence that the tree is the cause. A crack that happens to be near a tree does not establish much on its own |
| Design efforts to minimise canopy impact | What you tried and why it did not work. This is the one applicants leave out most often, and its absence is obvious to the assessor |
| Replacement planting | Species, position, deep soil provision, and what it reaches at maturity |
| Cumulative removal in the last 12 months | Whether canopy trees have already been taken off the site in the preceding twelve months, and what that adds up to |
The clause also asks council to weigh species and growth habit, clashes with access, easements, services and drainage, physical site constraints, solar access, bushfire defendable space where it applies, and how suitable the deep soil areas are for what you propose to plant.
Clearing the block first does not get you out of it
The cumulative guideline is the one that catches developers. If canopy trees came off the site in the twelve months before you lodge, council can take that into account in deciding this application. Removing trees early to make the application look smaller works against you rather than for you.
An application built around the guidelines above is a shorter and more focused document than a general tree report. Pages arguing neighbourhood character or housing need are pages council is not weighing.
6. How many canopy trees your site has to end up with
This is the part most summaries get backwards. The clause does not fine you a number of trees for removing one. It sets a minimum number of canopy trees on the site, and trees you keep count toward it just as new plantings do. So if you are retaining two mature canopy trees on a 600 m² block, you need four in total and you are planting two, not four.
On sites up to 1,000 m² the minimum is a set number by site area. Above that it switches to a canopy cover percentage.
| Site area | Minimum canopy trees on the site |
|---|---|
| Up to 100 m² | 1 tree |
| 101 to 200 m² | 2 trees |
| 201 to 500 m² | 3 trees |
| 501 to 700 m² | 4 trees |
| 701 to 1,000 m² | 6 trees |
| Over 1,000 m² | 20% canopy cover |
Replacement trees must be capable of reaching at least 6 m in height and 4 m of canopy at maturity, and they need somewhere to do it:
- Deep soil of at least 12 m² with a minimum dimension of 2.5 m, or
- A planter of at least 12 m³ at a minimum 0.8 m depth
Find this on the plan before you fix the footprint
A 900 m² site needs six canopy trees. If none of the existing trees are being kept, that is six new ones, each needing 12 m² of deep soil at a 2.5 m minimum dimension, so 72 m² of ground that cannot be built on, driven on or paved. On a site being developed close to its limits that is a real constraint, and it is much cheaper to allow for while the plans are still moving.
Third party summaries of this table are frequently wrong, including some published by people who should know better. Check any number you are given against the clause itself.
7. It does not replace your overlays
Clause 52.37 sits alongside Vegetation Protection, Environmental Significance and Significant Landscape Overlays. It does not override them, and it does not override a local law either.
So a single tree can require:
- A planning permit under Clause 52.37, decided on that clause's own guidelines, and
- A planning permit under an overlay, decided on that schedule's tests, and
- A local law permit, decided by a different part of the council on a different threshold
Stacked controls are where most applications come unstuck, because the thresholds do not line up. Boroondara's local law catches trees at 110 cm circumference anywhere on the lot. Clause 52.37 catches trees at 50 cm circumference, but on a block that already has a house on it, only within the boundary strips. A tree can easily be caught by one and not the other. The council pages set out how the two interact in each municipality.
Common questions
When did Clause 52.37 start?
Amendment VC289 introduced it to all Victorian planning schemes on 15 September 2025.
My block already has a house on it. Am I exempt?
Only for canopy trees away from the boundaries. A canopy tree with any part of its trunk within 6 m of the narrowest street frontage or 4.5 m of the rear boundary is a boundary canopy tree and does not get that exemption.
Is 0.5 metres the diameter or the circumference?
Circumference, measured at 1.4 m above ground. That is roughly a 159 mm diameter trunk, so it catches much smaller trees than people expect.
Can I argue neighbourhood character or housing need?
Not usefully. Clause 52.37 exempts the responsible authority from the Clause 65 decision guidelines, which is what would otherwise bring in the Municipal Planning Strategy and the planning policy framework. The decision runs on the clause's own guidelines instead.
Do trees I am keeping count toward the requirement?
Yes. The clause sets a minimum number of canopy trees for the site, not a penalty for removal, so retained canopy trees count toward the total and reduce what you have to plant.
Working on a site this applies to?
Send the address and whatever plans you have. Fixed quote back within one business day, and if it turns out you do not need a report I will tell you that instead.