Trees & Nature Strips

Urban Forest Strategy

Hobsons Bay City Council has a vision for an urban forest that creates a liveable city and a better urban environment that contributes to the health and wellbeing of our community. The Urban Forest Strategy aims to increase the city's tree canopy to 30 per cent by 2040.

The ‘urban forest’ refers to all trees of all varieties (including exotics, natives, deciduous and evergreens of varying sizes) located on both public and private land.

About the Urban Forest Strategy

The Urban Forest Strategy features four key objectives to address climate change, urban heat and development:

  1. Increase tree canopy in Hobsons Bay to 30 per cent by 2040
  2. Develop a diverse and healthy urban forest
  3. Adopt a 'trees led' approach to city planning, design and delivery
  4. Educate and foster care for urban trees.
As part of the Urban Forest Strategy, Council has developed a Canopy Delivery Plan, which will target key canopy enhancement opportunities:
  • Residential nature strip planting sites.
  • Street tree renewals.
  • Retrofitting new planting sites in hard surfaced areas, utilising Water Sensitive Urban Design (WSUD).
  • Opportunity mass planting sites.
  • Trees led approach to all carpark redevelopments and road rehabilitation projects.
  • Creation of a Green Streets program to help educate and foster care for urban trees.
  • Creation of a Green Industries program to maximise planting opportunities within our industrial precincts.

To read the full plan, please click on the following link Canopy Delivery Plan 2022(PDF, 8MB)

Priority areas for planting

Priority areas for planting have been identified across the municipality using a variety of factors and include:

  • places where there is capacity for additional trees on public land
  • suburbs and locations which have been identified as having high urban heat vulnerability
  • locations with high volumes of pedestrian movement such as activity centres, school zones and public transport hubs
  • active transport corridors such as cycleways, waterfront and coastal trails
  • locations zoned for increased residential density.

 

Tree Policy(PDF, 263KB)

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