Tree removal in Yarra Glen
Yarra Glen's streets have one tree rule and few bushfire-prone blocks. A few hundred metres out on the flats, both change.
We connect you with a local arborist who works in the Yarra Valley.
Ask for a quoteThe rail trail at Woori Yallock. Photo: Luke Steenhuis, CC BY-SA 4.0
The rule in Yarra Glen
The town is small and the locality around it is big. Of the 393 points we sampled, only 14 fell in the town's residential zones, and all 14 were under SLO23. On a house block in the town, a permit is needed for any tree over this size:
- 80 cm
- around the trunk, 1.3 m up. About a 26 cm trunk. Native plants get no separate test under it.
- 2 m
- Exempt within 2 m of a building, and branches over the house, garage or shed can be cut to 2 m clear.
Dead trees, lopping for regrowth and the listed environmental weeds are exempt too. The state's canopy-tree rule applies on these streets as well: a tree at least 5 m tall with a 4 m canopy 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) and Victoria Planning Provisions, Clause 52.37 (canopy trees).
Inside the town, and just outside it
Only 3 of the 14 town points were in a Bushfire Prone Area. Nearly all of the land around the town was: 380 of the 393 points. A house out of town is far more likely to have the 10/30 rule than one in the town's streets, so check your own report.
The 1939 Black Friday fires badly damaged the district, and so did the 2009 fires. On Black Saturday the town was surrounded on three sides, and houses just to its north were lost. The 10/30 rule's conditions.
Checked 23 October 2026 against Victoria Planning Provisions, Clause 52.12 (bushfire protection exemptions), Wikipedia: Yarra Glen, Victoria and Wikipedia: Black Saturday bushfires.
The flats: mostly SLO2
The 330 points in the farming zone split between two landscape overlays. SLO2, the "open valley landscape", was the larger, at 223. SLO6 had the other 107. Under either, native plants of any size and trees thicker than 1.1 m around need the council's permit, and the zone within 4 m of a building is exempt. SLO2 also exempts regrowth under 10 years on lawfully cleared land; SLO6 does not.
The flood overlay came up at 36 farm points and the erosion overlays at 22. The flood overlay's permit is for buildings and works, not tree removal. The erosion overlay's is for any vegetation, except a tree 50 cm or less around, anything within 2 m of a building, and dead vegetation where the ground is put back.
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 to Clause 44.01 (EMO).
Where the vines began
The Ryrie brothers took up the Yering run in 1837 and planted the first grape vines in the Yarra Valley the next year. The town was Yarra Flats until the railway came in 1889.
These public places in Yarra Glen have heritage tree controls:
- The war memorial, Avenue of Honour and Bills' Horse Trough in Bell Avenue.
- St Paul's Anglican Church in Bell Street, and the Grand Hotel.
- The trestle railway bridge over the Yarra, west of the station.
- The racetrack at Armstrong Grove.
Checked 23 October 2026 against Yarra Ranges Planning Scheme, Schedule to Clause 43.01 (Heritage Overlay) and Wikipedia: Yarra Glen, Victoria.
The rule next door
- Steels Creek, Dixons Creek and Tarrawarra
- Farm and bush country. Their centre points fell under SLO6 or SLO2; Steels Creek and Dixons Creek were in the fire's path in 2009.
- Coldstream and Yering
- Coldstream's town points were all SLO22, and most of its flats SLO2, as is Yering's centre point.
- Christmas Hills
- Not covered by this site. Your property report names its council and overlays.
Checked 23 October 2026 against Yarra Ranges Planning Scheme, Schedule 6 to Clause 42.03 (SLO6), Yarra Ranges Planning Scheme, Schedule 2 to Clause 42.03 (SLO2) and Wikipedia: Black Saturday bushfires.
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.