It is important to provide trees as part of the built environment, it contributes positively to people’s physical and mental wellbeing.

It provides services and benefits for the community including:

• providing shelter
• shade
• beauty
• air purification
• temperature regulation
• energy cost reduction of nearby spaces
• filtering of stormwater
• reduction of stormwater loads on drains and
• providing habitat/supporting biodiversity.

Relevant policy

Greening Port Phillip Strategy envisions City of Port Phillip as having a “healthy and diverse urban forest that uses innovative greening solutions to enhance the community’s daily experience, ensuring environmental, economic, cultural and social sustainability for future generations.”

The selected trees species are Australian evergreen natives, including one locally indigenous species, which fit well with existing planting along Woodstock and neighbouring streets.

There are multiple underground and overhead utility services which also impact plot size, location and tree selection.

Evergreen species have been selected as Woodstock St is narrow and heavily parked. Maintenance of leaf litter during the leaf fall period of deciduous trees, would be challenging and disruptive for residents.

The plots have been designed to be as large as possible without impacting parking and/or conflicting with underground and/or overhead assets.

We'd like to have provided large tree plots, however where there was an opportunity to install a smaller plot without impacting on car parking, this option was taken to contribute to overall canopy cover.

We couldn't have a consistent spacing and placement of tree plots along Woodstock Street without removing car parks. Therefore, a uniform planting arrangement (i.e. consistent spacing and placement along street) was not sought.

The tree plots will be installed flush with the road surface, with bluestone edging to match the existing kerb and channels along the street.

Each tree will be protected by a wooden traffic bollard. Smaller versions of this plot style can be seen on Marlborough and Rosamond Streets in Balaclava.

Council is trialling bollard rather than traffic hoop tree protection, as in the event of impact, the bollards can be replaced with less incursion into the structural root zone of the trees.

Tree Plot Design

There is a strong native planting theme in the area around Woodstock St, complemented by the new Bothwell St Biolink planting and the planting in the Woodstock St Reserve.

In addition to providing good canopy cover and visual amenity, the selected species have good to high biodiversity value, providing habitat for local fauna.

There will be no reduction in the number of car parks along Woodstock St.

We understand that residents living on and around Woodstock St are concerned about availability of car parking. The project has been designed to ensure that parking is not impacted by the introduction of in-road tree plots.

To ensure car-parking numbers were maintained, a traffic consultant was engaged to assess car parking numbers along the extent of the street (assessed to Australian Standard) and to identify all spaces along the street suitable for the placement of street trees (without reducing the number of available car parks when assessed to the Australia Standard).

Larger tree plots (3m x 1.8m) were preferred, but to ensure no loss of parking at some points along the street there was only room for smaller plots (1.8m x 1.5m) between or at the start of existing parking bays.

As part of the consultancy work, the traffic engineer undertook swept path analyses of the planting locations identified through the review to ensure that the new trees/plots would not adversely impact traffic movement and safety along the street.

The proposed tree placement was then internally reviewed and approved by an engineer within City of Port Phillip’s Traffic team.

There will be some short-term road closures associated with delivery of this project.

Residents will be advised in advance of any proposed road closures – including duration of closures and proposed diversions (if any).

Council will be working with contractors to ensure all closures are kept to a minimum.

There is no plan to remove any trees in the footpath as part of delivery of this project.

Some plots are located next to trees in footpaths. The trees in the footpath are being retained in the short term to retain canopy cover while the new trees establish. The City of Port Phillip Tree team will monitor the growth of the new trees to ensure there is no conflict between trees. In the future, some trees in the footpath may need to be removed to allow the new trees to reach their growth potential.

In coming months there are some damaged and dying trees that are scheduled to be removed from the footpaths on Woodstock St. Their removal is not related to this project.

There are 30 in-road tree plot sites that have been identified as suitable locations for new canopy trees.

We're constructing 20 in-road trees plots now.

Delivery of the additional 10 plots marked as future plots on the map will be decided, after the stormwater assets along Woodstock Street near the tree plot sites are inspected.

The condition of the stormwater assets and the extent of renewal required (if any) will determine if the pots are suitable for tree planting.