Haverhill, MA Invasive Plant Rules: Prohibited Species (2026)

Haverhill folds its invasive-plant prohibition into the zoning performance standards that apply to multifamily, nonresidential, and mixed-use projects exceeding 10,000 square feet of gross floor area or 10 dwelling units. Section 255-6.3.1(3), Landscaping and Screening, requires that a covered development maximize and retain open space, integrate into the natural landscape, minimize impacts to wetlands, floodplains, and water-resource recharge areas, and minimize tree, vegetation, and soil removal and grade change. Within that same paragraph, the ordinance states plainly that proposed landscaping must use native and drought-tolerant species and must prohibit invasive or nonnative plants.

Compliance is checked by the Special Permit Granting Authority, ordinarily the City Council or Zoning Board of Appeals, when it reviews a special permit or development-review application under Section 255-10.1.4. Applicants submit planting plans as part of that filing, and Section 255-6.3.3(3) layers on detailed landscaping mechanics elsewhere in the same performance-standards article, covering street buffers, screening between business and residential districts, parking-lot shade trees, and street-tree spacing, all of which draw from the same plant list the SPGA maintains in its Development Review Rules and Regulations.

A project that proposes invasive species in its landscaping plan does not meet this performance standard and cannot receive its special permit or development-review sign-off until the planting plan is revised. The rule reaches only development that triggers Section 255-6.3's performance-standards review; it does not regulate what a homeowner plants in an ordinary residential yard.