An inner-eastern council has warned that a state government plan to fast-track housing will reduce tree cover so significantly that increasing its canopy target would be pointless.

Boroondara Council officers will present the bleak report at a meeting on Monday night to recommend against raising the council’s canopy coverage target from 27 per cent to 30 per cent by 2040.

Ray Peck, a member of Lighter Footprints’ urban forest working group, outside a property in Camberwell with good canopy cover. Credit: Justin McManus

New codes for townhouse, low-rise, and four-storey developments – announced in February as a way to fast-track housing – were singled out as making it more difficult to arrest canopy decline on private land.

Failure to adopt the 30 per cent tree canopy target would

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