Tree removal in Chirnside Park
Chirnside Park is a 1970s suburb on an old pastoral estate, with river flats beside it. The streets have one tree rule, and the farmland around them has two.
We connect you with a local arborist who works in the Yarra Valley.
Ask for a quoteThe Monda Trail, Yarra Ranges National Park. Photo: Geoff Bartlett, CC BY-SA 4.0
The rule in Chirnside Park
We sampled the planning maps at 246 points across Chirnside Park. All 38 that fell in its Neighbourhood Residential streets were under SLO23, the foothill township overlay, which needs a council permit for any tree over this size:
- 80 cm
- around the trunk, 1.3 m above the ground. About a 26 cm trunk. SLO23 has no separate catch for native plants.
- 2 m
- Exempt within 2 m of a building. Branches over the house, garage or shed can be cut back to 2 m clear.
Dead trees, lopping to help regrowth and the council's listed environmental weeds are exempt too. Only 3 of the 38 street points were in a Bushfire Prone Area, so the 10/30 rule reaches few of the suburb's houses. The canopy-tree rule does reach them: in residential zones, a tree at least 5 m tall with a canopy 4 m across needs a permit if its trunk is within 6 m of the narrowest street frontage or 4.5 m of the rear boundary.
Get a free property report from VicPlan to see which overlays cover your block.
Checked 23 October 2026 against Yarra Ranges Planning Scheme, Schedule 23 to Clause 42.03 (SLO23), Victoria Planning Provisions, Clause 52.37 (canopy trees) and Victoria Planning Provisions, Clause 52.12 (bushfire protection exemptions).
An estate on an old pastoral run
From the late 1830s this was grazing land, part of John Gardiner's pastoral run, later known as Mooroolbark Park. George Chirnside moved his family's stud herds here from Werribee Park in 1921. The estate was subdivided from 1956 around the stone homestead, the country club and a golf course, and took the name Chirnside Park in 1962. SLO23's own description of the suburb says the same: housing built mostly in the 1970s, on old grazing land, against a backdrop of hills and paddocks.
The golf course has since closed, and the Cloverlea estate has been built on it. One tree in the suburb has a heritage listing of its own: an oak at the Chirnside Park Country Club on Kingswood Drive.
Checked 23 October 2026 against Wikipedia: Chirnside Park, Victoria, Yarra Ranges Planning Scheme, Schedule 23 to Clause 42.03 (SLO23) and Yarra Ranges Planning Scheme, Schedule to Clause 43.01 (Heritage Overlay).
Oakhaven
Six points fell in the Oakhaven estate, which has its own development plan overlay, DPO3, and no landscape overlay. The overlay's purposes include protecting the site's significant vegetation, some of it of heritage value, and its permits can carry conditions to keep particular trees on private lots. If your lot is in Oakhaven, ask the council whether a tree was kept that way before it is removed. The canopy-tree rule applies there as in the rest of the streets.
Checked 23 October 2026 against Yarra Ranges Planning Scheme, Schedule 3 to Clause 43.04 (DPO3, Oakhaven) and Victoria Planning Provisions, Clause 52.37 (canopy trees).
The green wedge: two farm overlays
More than half the suburb by area is green wedge, and it carries two different landscape overlays. SLO2, the "open valley landscape", came up at 123 of the 134 points in one green wedge zone. SLO6 covered all 31 points in the other.
Both need a permit for native vegetation of any size and for trees over 1.1 m around, and both exempt vegetation within 4 m of a building. They differ on regrowth. SLO2 lets regrowth under 10 years old on lawfully cleared land go without a permit. SLO6 has no such exemption. Two paddocks in the same suburb can get different answers.
The flood overlay came up at 20 points. It needs a permit for buildings and works, not for removing a tree, but filling or reshaping the ground is works. ESO1, at 17 points, keeps a permit for a standing dead tree more than 1.3 m around.
Checked 23 October 2026 against Yarra Ranges Planning Scheme, Schedule 2 to Clause 42.03 (SLO2), Yarra Ranges Planning Scheme, Schedule 6 to Clause 42.03 (SLO6), Victoria Planning Provisions, Clause 44.04 (Land Subject to Inundation Overlay), Victoria Planning Provisions, Clause 62.02 (buildings and works not requiring a permit) and Yarra Ranges Planning Scheme, Schedule 1 to Clause 42.01 (ESO1).
The rule next door
- Mooroolbark
- SLO23 at every residential point, the same 80 cm rule.
- Lilydale
- Split between SLO23 and SLO22, the township overlay with the lower 50 cm threshold.
- Wonga Park
- Mostly Manningham, whose house-block overlays catch any tree over 35 cm around or 6 m tall.
Every overlay in the valley is in the permit guide.
Checked 23 October 2026 against Yarra Ranges Planning Scheme, Schedule 23 to Clause 42.03 (SLO23) and Yarra Ranges Planning Scheme, Schedule 22 to Clause 42.03 (SLO22).
Ask for a quote
Tell us where you are and what needs doing. We pass it to a local arborist who works in the Yarra Valley. They ring you back to talk about the job.