Most projects on a residential block get planned in a sensible order: decide what you want, get it designed, get it quoted, book the trades. Drainage usually turns up somewhere in the middle, and trees turn up at the end if at all.
On a block in this shire that order is backwards, and it costs people real time. All trees here are protected apart from a limited list treated as weeds or hazards, and anything over five metres tall or with a canopy spread over five metres needs Council approval before it is pruned or removed. That is a step measured in weeks, with an outcome you do not control, and it belongs at the beginning of a project rather than partway through it.
Before the design is fixed, establish two things: where the existing drainage actually runs, and which trees on the block are protected. Anything that depends on removing or pruning a tree needs Council approval that takes weeks and may be refused, so a plan that assumes it is a plan with a hole in it. Design around the trees that are staying, and the project runs on schedule.
- Find out where the sewer and stormwater runs actually go
- Identify which trees are over the five metre triggers
- Ask Council early about anything involving a tree
- Design the drainage around trees that are staying put
- Remember excavation near a protected tree is its own approval question
On this page
1. Why the tree question belongs at the start
Every other decision in a project can be revised quickly. A design can be redrawn in an afternoon, a quote reissued in a day, a trade rebooked in a week.
A tree approval cannot be accelerated. It is a Council process with its own timeframe and its own outcome, and no amount of urgency on your part changes either. So it is the one item in the sequence that should start earliest, because it is the only one that cannot be compressed later.
The failure mode is familiar: a pool or a granny flat is designed, quoted and scheduled, and then somebody realises the excavation runs through a protected root zone. At that point everything else waits on a process that has not even begun.
Which is the part people plan around least well. A design that only works if permission is granted is a design with a single point of failure outside your control.
2. What actually triggers the approval requirement
Council strengthened tree protection so that all trees are protected, with a limited list of exceptions for species treated as weeds or hazards. Beyond that, the trigger most projects meet is size: over five metres in height, or a canopy spread greater than five metres.
There are narrow exemptions. A tree may be removed without permit where the base of the trunk is within three metres of the foundation of an approved building, where Council accepts it is dead or dying and is not fauna habitat, or where it is under three metres tall and not in bushland.
Those exemptions do not apply at all inside a Heritage Conservation Area, a Locally Significant Ecological Community, or an Endangered or Critically Endangered Ecological Community. Parts of this shire fall into those categories, and whether yours does is a question for Council rather than for a plumber or a landscaper.
The safe planning assumption is that the mature trees on your block are protected, and that anything requiring one to go is a Council conversation before it is a project decision.
3. Find out where the drainage runs before anything is drawn
The other thing worth establishing before a design is fixed is where the existing sewer and stormwater actually go, because on a block of any size that route is rarely the straight line people assume.
A sewer service diagram from Sydney Water shows the layout. A camera with a locate confirms it on the ground and marks position and depth. Between them you know what the block actually contains, which is the information every subsequent decision depends on.
It matters here more than usual because the two constraints interact. A drainage run you cannot move, under a canopy you cannot remove, defines the space a new pool, slab or shed actually has. Discovering that on paper is a conversation. Discovering it with an excavator on site is a stoppage.
4. Designing drainage around a tree that is staying
This is ordinary work rather than a compromise, and it is worth saying because people assume a protected tree makes a project impossible. It usually does not. It makes certain routes unavailable.
- Route around the root zone rather than through it, which is usually possible if it is decided at design stage and rarely possible once concrete is poured.
- Reline rather than replace where an existing run under a canopy needs work, because there is no trench and therefore no root zone question.
- Connect into existing runs where a new fixture reasonably can, instead of creating a new route across the block.
- Raise it with Council early where a route genuinely cannot avoid a protected tree, so the answer arrives before the schedule depends on it.
None of that is exotic. It is simply what happens when the constraint is known at the start rather than discovered in week three.
Planning something on a treed block?
We will find the existing runs and tell you what your design actually needs.
5. Excavation near a protected tree is its own question
It is easy to assume the rule is about removal, so anything short of removal is unaffected. That is not the situation.
A trench cut through a mature tree's root zone is capable of damaging or killing it, and damaging a protected tree is a problem in its own right regardless of whether anybody intended to remove it. So an excavation route beside a protected tree is a question to ask before the machine arrives, not a workaround for the permit.
Which is one of the reasons relining matters so much on these blocks: repairing a run from the inside leaves the root zone entirely undisturbed, so the question does not arise at all.
6. A sensible order for the whole thing
- Get the existing drainage located and, where useful, filmed.
- Identify which trees on the block are likely to be protected, and ask Council about anything the project might touch.
- Design with both of those as fixed constraints rather than assumptions to be tested.
- Quote the work against that design, so the numbers describe the job that will actually happen.
- Book the trades, knowing the sequence will not stall on a permission nobody has asked for yet.
- Keep the drainage footage, the locate and any Council correspondence with the house papers.
The first two steps cost very little and take a fortnight of calendar time that runs in parallel with everything else you were going to do anyway. Skipping them is what costs the month.
- All trees here are protected apart from a limited list treated as weeds or hazards.
- Over five metres tall, or over five metres of canopy, triggers Council approval to prune or remove.
- Exemptions are narrow, and do not apply at all in a Heritage Conservation Area or listed community.
- The approval takes weeks and may be refused, so it is the step that belongs first.
- Locate the existing sewer and stormwater before the design is fixed, not after.
- Excavating near a protected tree is its own approval question. Relining avoids it entirely.
Planning on a bushland block FAQs
Do I need approval to prune, or only to remove?
Both, once the tree meets the size triggers. Pruning is not automatically exempt, which catches people who assume a light trim is a different category. Council is the authority and worth asking directly.
How do I know whether my tree is protected?
Council can tell you, and it is the only reliable answer. The height and canopy triggers are a good guide to whether you need to ask, but whether an exemption applies to your particular tree, on your particular block, is not something a plumber or a landscaper can settle.
What if the tree is dead?
There is an exemption where Council accepts a tree is dead or dying and is not fauna habitat. Note both halves of that: Council accepting it, and the habitat question. It is still a conversation with them rather than a decision you make on your own.
Can I build over the drainage instead of moving it?
Sometimes, and it is worth understanding the trade. Building over a run means any future repair has to come through whatever you built, which is a cost deferred rather than avoided. On a block where the alternative route is under a protected canopy, it may still be the right call, made knowingly.
Does this apply to a new pool?
It applies to anything involving excavation or removal near a protected tree, and a pool is one of the most common ways people meet the rule. It is far cheaper to know at design stage than at excavation stage.
Who pays if the project stalls waiting for approval?
You do, in time and often in rebooking. That is the entire argument for putting the tree question first, and it is why we raise it before quoting rather than after.