The modern home-hunter faces a peculiar contradiction in Australia's property market. We celebrate urban forests in principle. We applaud government targets for tree canopy coverage. We admire neighbourhoods dense with mature shade.
Yet when it comes to actually owning a property, our tolerance for the trees themselves collapses at a precise, measurable boundary.
University of Technology Sydney researchers have quantified this tension for the first time, mapping the point where community enthusiasm for street greenery converts into cold economic resistance. The research identifies a "not in my backyard" (NIMBY) boundary of around 10 metres, within which street trees' economic value turns negative. Within that space, trees stop being amenity. They become cost.
Previous studies in Perth and several cities across the United States and Canada have consistently shown trees tend to increase property values. That pattern holds in Sydney. A street tree can boost property values by around $30,000 when positioned outside the 10-metre zone, but this economic value turns negative within it. For properties inside the critical boundary, vendors face losses of up to $70,000 as buyers view overhead branches, leaf litter and root incursion as liabilities rather than benefits.
The issue cuts deeper than aesthetics or inconvenience. The boundary marks the point at which resident resistance to street trees is likely to be strongest. Homeowners worry about gutters clogged with leaves, damage to plumbing and foundations, blocked views, and the unrelenting burden of maintenance labour in lives already stretched thin by work, childcare and competing obligations.
This resistance matters because Australia's cities have set ambitious targets that depend on widespread acceptance. Every Australian capital city has set tree-planting goals, such as the City of Sydney's target for 23% tree canopy cover in 2030 and 27% in 2050. Melbourne aims for 40% canopy cover by 2040. Brisbane targets 50% shade on residential footpaths and bikeways by 2031.
Yet many will struggle to meet those targets, with some facing resistance from residents. That resistance has teeth in property markets where every dollar of value shapes decisions about where families can afford to live.
The economic reality illustrated by this research reveals a genuine tension. While there are good reasons for governments to invest in urban trees to protect us from extreme heat and respond to climate change, resistance from homeowners can undermine these policies. No household wants to absorb a $70,000 loss when selling. The financial incentive to resist trees within striking distance of one's own home becomes rationally unavoidable.
Residents are more likely to welcome street trees if they're planted not too close, and not too far, from their homes. The precision matters. Climate and liveability are genuine public goods. But property ownership, for most Australians, remains their single largest financial asset. When policy implicitly asks homeowners to sacrifice one for the other without compensation, resistance should surprise no one.
Policymakers pursuing urban forest targets will need to navigate this honestly. The data makes clear that trees deliver public value. The question is whether that value should be absorbed entirely by the properties that carry them, or whether a rational community might design incentives, maintenance support, or other mechanisms to distribute the cost more fairly. Without that conversation, many of Australia's tree-planting ambitions may remain precisely what this research shows them to be: values we love in principle, nowhere near our own backyards.