Less than a year after a multi-million dollar resort opened in place of Austinmer’s Headlands Hotel, the owners of the serviced apartments have asked permission to chop down a heritage-listed Norfolk Island pine tree on site.
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In a request to Wollongong City Council, they say the tree “presents serious and immediate danger to the public due to its declining health and brittle branches that are now often falling”.
Under the council’s conditions of consent for the new buildings, the developers were required to “retain and protect” the trees.
Read more: New plans to expand Austi’s Headlands Hotel
In a report ordered by the Headlands serviced apartment strata committee in early October, aborists agreed that the tree is now “in heavy decline”.
Consultants from Moore Trees say that dead wood in the species “does not regenerate and will eventually shed from the tree as evidenced by sections of deadwood that are currently caught within the upper canopy”.
They recounted an incident, passed on from the resort management, from “a Mr Hudson from Thirroul who was walking by with his six-year-old son when a branch fell”.
The arborists also said “failure of the main stem is unlikely in the short term”.
Using a subjective but widely accepted tree assessment measure, they said the tree was “dead, dying, suppressed or declining” because of disease or inhospitable conditions and “clearly not safe to retain”.
The Headlands resort is surrounded by Norfolk Island pines, which are regarded as a landmark on the Brickyard Point headland.
During a legal stoush over the controversial development in 2010, a Wollongong council heritage expert labelled the trees “culturally significant” and suggested developers be required to plant more pines to provide screening of the site.
The council’s barrister also said the building plans, which were eventually approved, did not consider any setback from the trees, and a structural engineer told the Land and Environment Court that the pines could take up to 20 years to adjust if the planned structures altered wind conditions at the site.
However, a heritage consultant for the then developer Weriton Finance, said he was “not convinced it will create significant issues”.
The tree in question under the new development application has been visually under stress for some time, with photographs during construction of the hotel showing its branches to be sparse and browning.
Headlands’ proposal to remove the tree is open for public comment through the council’s development applications site until November 15.
Kate McIlwain
For more than a decade, I've helped the Illawarra Mercury set the news agenda across the region. Currently I'm the paper's health reporter - covering the stories of Illawarra workers and residents in the wake of a global pandemic and at a time where our health systems are stretched to the limit.
For more than a decade, I've helped the Illawarra Mercury set the news agenda across the region. Currently I'm the paper's health reporter - covering the stories of Illawarra workers and residents in the wake of a global pandemic and at a time where our health systems are stretched to the limit.
