Clinton Township, MI Invasive Plant Rules: Tree-of-Heaven Removal (2026)

06, Plant Sizing and Variety, sets the species rules that apply to those required plantings. Subsection (c) prohibits eight tree types outright: box elder, soft maples, elm, poplars, willows, nut-bearing horse chestnut, tree of heaven and catalpa. 05. 01(b) sets the trigger: these landscaping standards, and therefore the prohibited species list, apply to any area proposed for development, redevelopment or expansion that goes through site plan approval under Chapter 1297. The rule is a planting restriction rather than a property-wide removal mandate: it stops tree of heaven, a fast-spreading invasive linked to the spread of spotted lanternfly, from being planted or credited as landscaping on a new site plan, but it does not by itself require an existing property owner to cut down a tree of heaven that predates the ordinance.

06(b) also caps how much any single approved species can dominate a landscape plan, no more than 33% of the total plantings, reinforcing that a site cannot lean on a small handful of species even from the permitted list.