Bartow County, GA Invasive Plant Rules: Prohibited Species (2026)

Sec. 63(l) of the Development Regulations of Bartow County, part of Appendix B to the county code, prohibits planting any species with a vigorous root system within a sanitary sewer or public water easement, and names Eastern Cottonwood, Willow, and Lombardy Poplar as examples of such species. The provision sits within Sec. 63, the landscape requirements article that governs vehicular use areas and site landscaping for the county's non-residential and multi-family zoning districts, adopted to improve appearance, minimize erosion, and maintain environmental standards for new development under Sec.

63(a). Landscape plans for these projects must be prepared and stamped by a Georgia-registered landscape architect and submitted to the engineering department as part of the construction plan under Sec. 63(b), so the root-system restriction is checked at the plan-review stage rather than left to voluntary compliance. The county follows this prohibition with a certificate-of-compliance requirement: once landscaping for a development phase is installed, the engineering department inspects the site, and a design professional must certify compliance before a certificate of occupancy issues for related structures.

Because the rule is written into the site-plan approval process for commercial, industrial, and multi-family development rather than as a general nuisance ordinance, it does not reach single-family residential planting choices, and it targets only the specific hazard of roots damaging buried sewer and water infrastructure rather than invasive or noxious plants generally.