Street trees hacked in half or cut into U-shapes with a chainsaw to avoid powerlines have long been a gripe of residents.
Councils which own the street trees often clash with electricity distribution companies which say pruning is necessary for safety.
But a compromise solution is now on the table in New South Wales.
Ausgrid, which controls large swathes of powerlines in Sydney, has proposed a $20 million jointly funded program to use aerial cable bundling.
The process involves gathering exposed wires into one package to reduce the need for severe tree pruning.
"Aerial bundling also allows us to maintain a denser and wider tree canopy, helping to keep streets cooler through days of extreme heat," an Ausgrid spokesperson said.
City of Sydney councillor Jess Scully is backing the proposal, which would require councils to chip in between 30 to 50 per cent of the cost.
"Anyone who has seen a tree that they love on their street receive the giant bonsai treatment and get hacked to within an inch of its life has felt that pain," Cr Scully said.
"Surely there's got to be a better way of managing this."
New South Wales councils will consider Cr Scully's motion to support the Ausgrid proposal at next week's Local Government NSW Conference and debate who should fund the work.
Tree canopy needed to cool suburbs
Cr Scully said suburbs could not afford to lose vital tree canopy as heatwaves became more intense and threatened residents' health.
"In cities where you have a lot of concrete, a lot of buildings, a lot of heat is reflected, you actually need a lot of trees to help counteract that heat island effect," she said.
Urban forest consultant Gwilym Griffiths said big trees provided essential cooling effects, with temperatures up to 8 degrees Celsius lower in shade than in the sun.
"Every time a tree is pruned, it's a wound," Mr Griffiths said.
"By the time the tree is getting to the height of wires and a size that they would be coming along to prune, that's when it's providing its best benefits.
"So it is devastating to see trees cut in half when they're just reaching their full potential."
Pressure growing
Mr Griffiths, who previously worked for a large Sydney council, said pressure was growing on power companies to fund alternatives to butchering trees as appreciation for urban green space grew.
"It's going to become less and less acceptable to be pruning the way they are," Mr Griffiths said.
Aerial bundled cables still require less pruning compared to exposed wires that require up to 3 metres of clearance.
About a fifth of the Ausgrid network already uses bundling, but the rollout had stalled as councils had been expected to foot the entire cost.
Bundling the cables into one package costs about $11,000 per span — the distance between two power poles— a fraction of the cost of burying them.
While Ausgrid was offering to pay up to 70 per cent of the cost, Cr Scully said the remainder was still too expensive for some councils.
Her motion calls on councils to lobby the NSW government to contribute their share of up to $8 million over five years.
Cumberland Mayor Lisa Lakes said she supported the idea of aerial bundled cabling, but could not afford to pay the outstanding amount.
"We have certainly suffered from poor pruning," Cr Lakes said.
"Anything that improves tree canopy is a good thing.
"It's just a question of councils and their limited budgets."
The state government has set a target to increase Greater Sydney's urban tree canopy cover to 40 per cent by 2036, up from 23 per cent.
The challenge is underlined by data collected by RMIT University's Centre for Urban Research and Greener Spaces Better Places which found half of Sydney's council areas lost urban forest cover since 2013.
The Greater Cities Commission says "opportunities to relocate powerlines underground or bundle them may be explored at a local or precinct scale".
