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Protected slopes

These areas are defined as the streets below the major ridge-lines and sheltered from the extremes of coastal or westerly winds. The soils are generally deeper than the adjacent elevated streets.

In Dover Heights and Vaucluse these are the streets on the western side sloping down to Rose Bay. In Bondi, the north facing slopes around Edward, Francis and Wellington Streets and in Bondi Junction the streets on the southern side of Birrell Street.

Streetscape Chararacter

The streets in Dover Heights and Vaucluse generally have wide grassy footpaths with no overhead wires – ideal site conditions for establishing an avenue of low broad-domed trees.

In North Bondi and Queens Park the streets vary from wide to narrow often with low overhead wires.

Dominant Trees

Issues and Considerations

• Opportunities for establishing large tree planting and avenue planting
• Overhead wires may restrict tree sizes
• Views from residences need to be considered with species selection
• Many mature trees restricted by overhead wires were heavily lopped until the early 1990’s. In some instances this lopping has resulted in mature trees with poor branch structure and advanced decay. Subsequent improved pruning techniques were undertaken to establish a tunnel around the wires while still maintaining the necessary electrical clearances.

Strategies

• To investigate the potential for more avenue and shade planting
• To use tree species appropriate to the scale of the street and the width of the naturestrip

Actions

• Undertake new plantings to take advantage of the wide naturestrips
• Assess the number of streets that would benefit from the replacement of overhead wires with aerial bundle cabling (the bunching of the several strands of electricity wires into one sheathed cable) and prioritise within the aerial bundle replacement program

Preferred Tree Species

*= may only be available from specialist native nurseries