Moved by Councillor Scully, seconded by the Chair (the Lord Mayor) -
It is resolved that:
(A)
Council
note:
(i)
the
City of Sydney is aiming to increase its tree canopy to 27 per cent cover by
the year 2050. It has earmarked $377 million to invest in parks, green roofs
and walls, streetscape gardening and improved urban forests across the whole
Local Government Area, including the planting of at least 700 trees a year;
(ii)
the NSW
Government is aiming to plant five million trees across Greater Sydney by 2030
to help achieve its goal of increasing canopy cover to 40 per cent;
(iii)
increasing
the tree canopy in our local parks, streets and neighbourhoods will provide
much needed shade and shelter from heat, improve our air and water quality,
improve health and wellbeing and build our resilience to climate change;
(iv)
street
trees provide the most urban cooling benefit, as they shade hard surfaces like
buildings and asphalt;
(v)
electricity
distributors only consider small trees suitable for planting under powerlines.
Pruning to ensure safe clearances by electricity distributors can often
significantly reduce the urban canopy;
(vi)
when
overhead low voltage bare wire cables are upgraded to insulated cable known as
aerial bundled cable (ABC), trees can grow closer to the wires and can be
directionally pruned around the wires, allowing for larger trees and greater
canopy cover;
(vii)
local
residents regularly express concern regarding the heavy pruning of street trees
by Ausgrid contractors as overhead bare wire cables cannot come within close
proximity of tree canopy;
(viii)
currently
if a council wants to upgrade the network from bare wire to ABC, it would need
to hire an Accredited Service Provider and would bear the full cost of the
upgrade;
(ix)
in
preparing for its Draft Plan 2024-29, Ausgrid consulted with Councils through
various working groups. At the vegetation management and resilience groups,
several Councils asked for more aerial bundled cabling;
(x)
Ausgrid
is working with Councils to co-fund upgrades to ABC, as part of a broader
climate resilience program;
(xi)
the
City of Sydney was previously involved in a similar co-funding program with
Ausgrid that ended roughly 10 years ago. Since the end of this program, city
staff have continued to advocate for ABC and undergrounding of cables;
(xii)
the
proposal includes a priority funding program for councils with low urban canopy
cover and low proportions of ABC in their overhead network. Priority councils
would receive a 70 per cent funding contribution from Ausgrid. It also includes
a non-priority program which provides 50 per cent co-funding contribution;
(xiii)
under
the terms of the draft program, the City of Sydney may be eligible for roughly
$277,000 in non-priority program funding to upgrade 63 spans over 2024-2029;
(xiv)
Ausgrid
is seeking a letter of ‘in-principle’ support from councils for the program
when they release their Draft Plan 2024-29 for consultation on 31 August 2022;
(xv)
councils
should consider the benefit if both Essential Energy and Endeavour Energy, the
network operators for the Greater Sydney area and regional NSW, were to
implement similar co-funding programs for Councils; and
(xvi)
this
would facilitate the City of Sydney’s Greening Strategy to increase canopy
cover of the Local Government Area by 50 per cent by 2030 and enable the NSW
Government to achieve their canopy cover goal of 40 per cent;
(B)
the
Chief Executive Officer be requested to write an in-principle letter of support
to Ausgrid for the ABC co-funding program; and
(i)
explains
the opportunity and asks NSW councils to consider supporting the co-funding
proposal;
(ii)
asks
LGNSW to write to Essential Energy and Endeavour Energy to encourage
implementation of similar programs across NSW; and
(iii)
asks
LGNSW to write to the NSW Department of Planning and Environment for funding to
support Councils with their contribution towards the program.
Carried unanimously.
X086654