Owners of a tree they say was slipped onto the Tauranga City Council's list of protected trees without their knowledge resume their efforts to have the tree felled this week.

The tree is one of three London Plane trees retained as part of the original subdivision at Wakefield Drive.

The troublesome tree.

The owners and developers have been struggling with the council since 2013 to have the tree removed from the ‘notable' list so they can have it felled.

They say it's preventing the sale of 7 Edwin Grove.

The canopy shades the section and the drip line intrudes onto the site. Because of planning constraints associated with building under the drip line of a notable tree, no one will buy the section because the house would be too small, owner Philippa Howcroft claims.

The tree also creates a significant maintenance issue as the leaf drop falls on the site and will block future drains. The ongoing inconvenience associated with this maintenance has put off potential purchasers of the section, which remains the last section in the Edwin Grove to sell.

Philippa initially took the tree issue to the previous council's hearings panel in October 2013 seeking permission to prune the tree.

Now the family has gone to the expense of hiring the experts to produce a documented case for a resource consent application to drop the tree altogether.

The land is a former kiwifruit orchard the family developed over the 34 years they have been living on the property.

'The trees were there. Some of the trees next door were chopped down when Belvedere did their subdivision, and they were London Plane trees too.

'Our neighbour went to town when they were doing the subdivision next door and had the three London Plane Trees put on the protected list.”

The trees were protected without the Howcrofts consent, and are now notable trees after the exercise five years ago when the council pruned back its protected list to about 300 trees.

'Once they were put on the protected tree list we did have meeting with Stuart Crosby three or four years ago with the council arborist. He was quite good about the whole thing but nothing happened.

'We did make a submission to council about the trees going on the district plan, but they had three councillors sitting on that committee and they turned us down. Today we were very pleased because we felt they took an interest in our concerns.”

The tree blocks a lot of sun from the section both in winter and summer and covers a large portion of the section. Their complaint was they were facing paying for work to be done on a tree that is not owned or controlled by them, but has been allowed by the council to grow.

'As the council decided that the greater good of the community is served by this tree, why must I bear the costs now and in the future of this tree,” Philippa says in her written submission.

If the tree is an amenity for all, then all must pay. The council stands for all who wished the tree to remain and needs to accept responsibility for it.

Three London Plane trees were retained as part of the original subdivision of Wakefield Drive. The three trees are located adjacent to one another on three separate properties.

All three trees are well established with large canopies. Parts of the canopies overlap one another due to the spacing of the trees.

The tree is at the western end of a row of three mature London Plane trees, all of which are registered as Notable Trees under the Tauranga City Plan. The canopy of the tree extends out over both 53 Wakefield Drive and 7 Edwin Grove.

Mature trees and established vegetation are located throughout the wider neighbourhood and several specimen trees are located within the road berm of both Wakefield Drive and Edwin Grove.

These adverse effects need to be balanced against the wider positive social effects the tree provides to the community.

A Landscape Assessment undertaken for the resource consent application by Boffa Miskell concludes that the removal of the tree will not have a significant adverse impact on the amenity of the urban neighbourhood.

It is considered that the benefit to the landowners of developing their land outweighs the wider social effects of having the tree removed. It will also help the completion of residential development on Edwin Grove, which in turn will have positive social effects on the neighbourhood, says the assessment.

The hearing is on Thursday before an independent commissioner.