Land Clearing & Site Clearance in Geelong
Geelong Tree Experts is a Geelong-based tree care company with over 20 years of hands-on arboricultural experience, providing land clearing and site clearance to builders, developers, civil contractors and landowners across Geelong, the Bellarine Peninsula, Surf Coast and Greater Geelong. Clearing a site for development is not the same job as removing a backyard tree: it involves surveying every tree on the lot, working out which ones must be retained and protected to AS 4970-2009 (the Australian Standard for protection of trees on development sites), and confirming whether any tree on the block is a canopy tree under Clause 52.37 before a single cut is made. Our crews hold the AHC30820 Certificate III in Arboriculture for the physical clearing work, and site surveys and Tree Protection Zone (TPZ) plans are prepared by our AQF Level 5 diploma-qualified consultant, the qualification level Victorian councils expect behind a report supporting any permit application on the site. Every job is fully insured and run from a real street address at 4B Backwell Street, North Geelong, not a mobile number and a PO box, and every survey is genuinely free before any contract is signed. Our advantage on development sites specifically is that we handle the compliance survey, the protection planning and the physical clearing under one contract, instead of you coordinating an arborist report, a separate clearing crew and a builder's schedule around three different suppliers who rarely talk to each other before a stop-work issue turns up on-site and delays the whole build program.
We clear sites across Geelong, the Bellarine Peninsula, Surf Coast and Greater Geelong, and Clause 52.37 is the single most consequential factor on most of that work. Since the clause took effect on 15 September 2025, it applies hardest on vacant lots, where a permit is required to remove a canopy tree anywhere on the block, not just near the street frontage — which makes it directly relevant to the Northern and Western Geelong Growth Areas, a 5,367 hectare development project, and to Armstrong Creek and Charlemont specifically. On developed lots the rule applies within street-frontage and rear-boundary buffers rather than across the whole site. Getting the tree survey and permit pathway right before clearing starts is the difference between a clean site handover and a stop-work order midway through a build program. Call 03 8203 5003 to scope a site survey before your clearing works are due to begin.
Why choose Geelong Tree Experts for mulching and wood chipping
- The disposal maths is on the page, not hidden in the quote. Drysdale Resource Recovery Centre charges $110 per cubic metre, and a tandem caged heaped trailer of branches, about 4 cubic metres, costs $440 there. Chipped on site, that same 4 cubic metres becomes roughly 52 square metres of mulched garden bed at 75mm depth and never leaves the property. No competitor in this market publishes a single figure of this kind.
- A published chip specification, not a vague promise of "quality mulch". We tell you the grade you are getting and why it matters. CSIRO bushfire guidance warns against mulch finer than about half a centimetre, and the same 5mm threshold separates mulch that saves water from mulch that wastes it. Coarse arborist chip clears both bars, and we will say so with the numbers attached.
- ·Biosecurity handled properly. Agriculture Victoria names infected bark mulch as a transmission route for Dutch elm disease, and elm leaf beetle is spreading west through Victoria toward Geelong. Phytophthora cinnamomi has been shown to survive more than 21 days in fresh ground green waste. When a tree is suspect, its chip stays on the site it came from instead of being pooled into a regional stockpile. Not one Geelong operator addresses this.
- ·Fire guidance for the country we actually work in. We service Anglesea, Jan Juc, Torquay and Bellarine properties in bushfire-prone areas with BAL ratings. We place mulch to CSIRO guidance, clear of the house, windows, doors and subfloor, and we will tell you where not to put it. Competitors in this market claim mulching makes a landscape resistant to fire, which the guidance does not support as written.
- ·Written quotes after a site walk-through, from insured crews holding qualifications we will name. AHC30820 Certificate III in Arboriculture for the trade work, AQF Level 5 Diploma of Arboriculture where a job needs consulting-level oversight. Victoria licenses none of it, so publishing the stack is the only way you can check.
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Land clearing services
Not every clearing job carries the same regulatory profile, which is why we assess each of the following differently before quoting a scope of work.
Residential building-site clearance
Single-lot clearance ahead of a new build or knockdown-rebuild, including a canopy tree check against Clause 52.37 and, where retained trees sit close to the build envelope, an AS 4970 protection plan for the construction phase.
Rural and acreage land clearing
Larger rural and semi-rural blocks around Lara, Armstrong Creek and the outer Geelong fringe, typically cleared with heavier machinery and direct-felling methods where drop zones allow, with debris mulched or removed on-site as the landowner prefers.
Vegetation and scrub clearing
Understorey, scrub and smaller regrowth clearance ahead of fencing, driveway or infrastructure works, scoped separately from significant tree removal since it typically doesn't trigger the same permit obligations.
Growth-area subdivision clearing
Multi-lot clearance for subdivisions across the Northern and Western Geelong Growth Areas and Armstrong Creek, where AS 4970 retained-tree planning and the Clause 52.37 vacant-lot rule both apply across the whole site, and any new street tree planted as part of the subdivision has to meet the clause's own canopy tree specification at maturity.
Our land clearing process
What happens between the first enquiry and a cleared, compliant site:
- Site assessment and full tree survey, cataloguing every tree on the lot by species, size and condition.
- Clause 52.37 and AS 4970 compliance check, identifying any canopy trees requiring a permit and any trees that must be retained and protected.
- Tree Protection Zone (TPZ) and Structural Root Zone (SRZ) plan prepared for any retained tree, to AS 4970-2009.
- Written, no-obligation quote covering clearing method, retained-tree protection and site clean-up.
- Clearing works carried out to the agreed scope, with protection fencing maintained around any retained trees for the duration of works on-site.
- Mulching, green waste removal and sign-off documentation, including confirmation of Clause 52.37 compliance for council or certifier records.
Clause 52.37 and land clearing: what developers need to know
A canopy tree under Clause 52.37 is one that meets all three thresholds: height over 5m, trunk circumference over 0.5m at 1.4m height, and canopy diameter of at least 4m. The clause applies in every residential zone across Greater Geelong except Low Density Residential, which covers most of the zoning present across the growth-area corridors. On a vacant lot, a permit is required to remove a qualifying canopy tree anywhere on the block; on a developed lot, the requirement applies within street-frontage and rear-boundary buffers. Most applications that meet clause 71.06 requirements qualify for the VicSmart assessment pathway, with a decision due within 10 business days, and comparable councils approve 70–90% of applications — but council officers can only assess against the clause's own purpose and decision guidelines, which is why a report written specifically to it, rather than a generic arborist report, is what actually gets approved.
AS 4970-2009 governs any tree you're retaining rather than removing, setting out Tree Protection Zone and Structural Root Zone distances that must be fenced off and protected for the duration of construction. Root damage from construction traffic or excavation within these zones is often not visible until the tree declines months or years later, which is why the protection plan has to be in place before machinery arrives on-site, not after damage has already occurred.
The two standards intersect most often across the Northern and Western Geelong Growth Areas, a 5,367 hectare project expected to house around 110,000 people, and the Armstrong Creek growth corridor, which together with a third growth area are planned to accommodate roughly 175,000 people in total. On these sites it's common to have some trees requiring a Clause 52.37 permit to remove, others requiring an AS 4970 protection plan to retain, and new street trees that have to be selected and planted to meet the clause's own canopy tree specification at maturity — three separate compliance obligations on a single subdivision, which is exactly why we run the survey, the protection plan and the clearing under one contract rather than three separate suppliers.
Land clearing costs
We don't publish a flat land clearing price because lot size, tree density and access vary enormously between sites, but we do explain what drives the number, which is more than most competitors offer. The main factors are the number and size of trees to be cleared, whether any require a Clause 52.37 permit application before removal (adding the $220 council fee and a $500–$1,500 arborist report to the clearing cost), access for machinery, and whether retained trees need an AS 4970 protection plan maintained through the construction period. We'll walk through all of this in a written quote before any clearing work begins.
Where we provide land clearing services
We clear residential, rural and development sites across Geelong, Armstrong Creek, Charlemont, Lara and the Northern and Western Geelong Growth Areas, as well as the Bellarine Peninsula and Surf Coast. See our full service areas for suburb-specific coverage, and our Clause 52.37 guide for a deeper look at the vacant-lot permit rule.
What our customers say about us
Frequently Asked Questions
Possibly. Clause 52.37 applies to canopy trees anywhere on a vacant lot, not just near the street, so we survey the block against the clause's three-part test before any clearing quote is finalised.
Land clearing typically involves multiple trees across a site ahead of construction or subdivision, with a formal tree survey, retained-tree protection planning to AS 4970, and often a Clause 52.37 compliance check — a standard removal is usually a single tree assessed in isolation.
Yes — this is standard on most development-site jobs. We install and maintain AS 4970-compliant Tree Protection Zone fencing around any retained tree for the full duration of clearing and construction works.
Yes, where the clause applies, a replacement or new street tree generally needs to reach at least 6m height and 4m canopy diameter at maturity to qualify as a compliant new canopy tree.
It depends heavily on whether a Clause 52.37 permit is required — clearing without a permit issue can often be scheduled within days, while a permit application typically adds several weeks even on the faster VicSmart pathway.
Both. We regularly work directly with builders, developers and civil contractors on growth-area subdivisions as well as with individual landowners clearing a single residential block.