Land Clearing

What is Land Clearing ? 

Land clearing is the tree removal process done on a larger scale to remove vegetation from larger areas of land prior to development works, for safety reasons or for fire hazard reduction reasons. Depending on the reasons for removal of the vegetation it can involve removal of the larger trees leaving the smaller understorey vegetation (i.e. for tree removal for safety reasons), leaving the larger trees and removing the smaller vegetation (i.e. for fire mitigation purposes) or removal of everything back to bare ground ready for a new development. 

What are the benefits of land clearing ?

 Land clearing of sites can be done for a whole range of reasons as listed below: 

1. Usability of Land – Often sites not only need tree removal and stump grinding to enable development of the site for housing or new roads and infrastructure but there is often lots of smaller understorey vegetation that needs to be removed as well. Tree removal prior to development works allows earth moving equipment to then change the grade and slope of the site as required for the construction works.
2. Removal of environmental weeds – Some trees and vegetation are classed as environmental weeds due to their invasive abilities that prevents local endemic tree species and vegetation from growing on a site. Land clearing and tree removal of weed species can then enable the owner to return the land back to its original state by re-vegetating the site with native tree species and plants that are beneficial to the local flora and fauna.
3. Safety reasons – Tree removal may be required if trees are dead, diseased or decayed to a point where they pose a significant risk to the surrounding property and persons. For risk mitigation reasons these trees will need to be removed and stumps removed.
4. Fire hazard Reduction – Much of the Sydney land clearing works involve tree removal services predominantly to ensure there is a buffer zone between a property and the surrounding bush land to reduce the risk posed by bush fires. This is why the 10/50 bush fire tree removal laws were implemented by NSW in 2014. This allows the clearance of all large canopy trees within 10m of a residence and all smaller understorey vegetation back to 50m in bush fire prone regions of Sydney and NSW.
5. Enhancing Land Value – Trees and vegetation of limited amenity value can reduce the value of land that is being sold for development since it adds additional cost to new buyers and if it’s covered in lots of weeds it’s difficult for potential buyers to see the whole site. Tree removal of low retention value trees and vegetation will therefore increase the value of the land for new developments.

 What land clearing services and tree removal equipment do we provide ? 

 We provide Sydney land clearing services to remove trees and vegetation from all sizes of property, from large acreage sites proposed for new housing right down to small individual lot clearing for a single residence. The process can involve tree removal of just certain individual trees or all vegetation on site including all small understory trees. This will also involve all tree stump removal from the site. The process by which the tree removal for land clearing is carried out will depend on the site conditions and complications that will enable machinery access as well as how much of the site vegetation is to be cleared. In many cases it will involve a combination of tree removals using manual rigging techniques and clear felling of trees as well as the use of cranes to help with larger tree removal and removal of large diameter timber from site. In cases where the land clearing involves larger sites we will then use larger machinery than would normally be used by a regular tree removal crew. This is not only done for efficiency reasons but it is also often safer to use forest machinery designed exactly for this purpose.

 The Sydney tree removal and land clearing machinery we use on larger sites would include:

• Bandit Beast Recycler – This is a huge mobile horizontal grinder with a conveyor belt that feeds several large trees at once into an opening 2 meters wide and can process up 150 cubic meters of mulch an hour.
• Excavators and Bobcats – These 20 ton excavators are fixed with grapples to pick up whole trees for stacking and processing, whilst the bobcats can clean up the remaining.
• Forest Mowers – Like the name suggests these machines can quickly mow down small trees and scrub, mulching them up, without damaging the roots of the larger trees around if necessary, and leaving a parkland within a few hours.

Obviously this machinery is only for large scale land clearing and tree removal services since they require transportation costs and if the area involves only 10- 30 trees for example we will often be able to process this with a standard 18inch Vermeer chipper and winch set-up. We may also use cranes to help with this tree removal process if the site has more access or steeply sloped since this greatly improves the efficiency and reduces the land clearing cost.

What areas do we cover with our Sydney land clearing services ?

 Sydney Tree Solutions offers tree removal services and land clearing services in the greater Sydney area although the majority of our customers are within the Sydney North Shore. We serve areas like Killara, St Ives, Gordon, Turramurra, Wahroonga and Hornsby in the North Shore. Other areas we provide our tree services are Castle Cove, Willoughby, Artarmon, Lane Cove, Cammeray, Mosman, Chatswood, and Castlecrag in the Lower North Shore.

 Do I need council permission?

 There are many rules associated with tree removal services when land clearing. These are dependent on the area in which you live (i.e. rural or urban) and also the reasons the block clearance is required (i.e for new developments or fire mitigation purposes). It is important you refer to the state legislation, environmental legislation and the local Council Tree Preservation Order to determine what tree removal works can be carried out on your property.

 Why use Sydney Tree Solutions? 

Sydney Tree Solutions is a professional tree removal and stump removal company that provides land clearing services to the north shore Sydney and greater Sydney suburbs. Our professional arborists can also provide you with all the advice and consultancy requirements you may require to obtain permission to allow you to proceed with the tree removals on your property. Our arborists are fully certified to AQF Level 3 and our consulting arborists are certified to AQF Level 5 and AQF Level 8. Contact us today or call 0405 095 095 for professional Sydney tree removal and stump grinding services.