Albemarle County, VA Invasive Plant Rules: Prohibited Species (2026)

Albemarle County's Water Protection chapter locks down a riparian buffer of at least 100 feet along perennial streams and their contiguous wetlands under Sec. 4, and Sec. 6 generally bars disturbing or removing native vegetation inside that buffer without an approved plan. 7 lists the narrow set of activities landowners may still carry out inside a buffer without that approval, and subsection (K), 'Limited vegetation removal,' is one of them: a landowner may remove dead, diseased or dying trees and shrubbery; noxious weeds or invasive plant species, expressly naming Johnson grass, kudzu and multiflora rose as examples without limiting the category to just those three; and vegetation that poses an imminent threat to buildings or public health or safety.

The Riparian Buffer Administrator, a role assigned to the County Engineer or a designee under Sec. 3, can demand proof that removed vegetation actually qualified as one of those three categories, and can require a mitigation plan and replanting under Sec. 9 if the vegetation did not meet the criteria. Outside the riparian buffer, the county code does not maintain a separate noxious-weed or invasive-species list or a countywide prohibition on planting these species; the Sec. 7(K) reference is specific to buffer maintenance and comes from the county's 2026 rewrite of the water protection chapter, effective September 1, 2026.

Fertilizer and herbicide use inside the buffer is otherwise banned under Sec. 6(G), except when applied for invasive-species control approved under this same subsection (K).