Dearborn Heights, MI Invasive Plant Rules: Tree-of-Heaven Removal (2026)

Section 36-401 sits in Article X, Landscaping and Screening, of the zoning ordinance, the same article that requires a landscape plan before the city will approve a site plan, issue a building permit, or grant a certificate of occupancy under § 36-391(b). The prohibited-materials table bars tree of heaven, along with box elder, silver maple, Russian olive, autumn olive, ash species, female ginkgo and honey locust, privet, honeysuckle, white mulberry, poplar and cottonwood species, buckthorn, black locust, multiflora rose, willow, American elm, and Siberian elm, from being used to satisfy a required landscape plan.

The restriction is prospective: it governs what a developer, business, or homeowner undergoing site plan review may plant, not what already exists on a lot, so an established tree of heaven on private property is not itself declared a violation by this section. Compliance is checked at the point the city reviews landscape plans, and again when the planning consultant conducts a landscape inspection under § 36-391(c) before a certificate of occupancy is issued; costs of that inspection are borne by the applicant. Because Article X's minimum requirements apply to new construction, building expansions above certain thresholds, and changes of use or occupancy under § 36-391(f), a commercial remodel or new development that lists tree of heaven on its planting schedule can have its landscape plan rejected or its certificate of occupancy withheld until a substitute species is provided.

The table's remarks column also carves out exceptions for some species, such as allowing male ginkgo and honey locust cultivars even though the female forms are barred, but no such exception is printed for tree of heaven.