Alamance County, NC Landscaping Rules: Tree Removal & Heritage Trees (2026)

When a subdivider chooses cluster or planned unit development inside a Watershed Critical Area, the land left over after calculating overall project density becomes designated common area under the county's Minimum Design Standards for lots. That common area must stay wholly undisturbed to preserve its natural groundcover and tree canopy: no structures and no land-disturbing activity are allowed. The ordinance carves out four narrow activities. First, overcrowded trees or noxious vegetation may be thinned under standard forestry management practices, but only if no tree over three inches in diameter, measured twelve inches or less from the ground, is removed.

Second, utilities and erosion-control structures can be built and maintained. Third, mechanical mowing is allowed to control growth in utility areas. Fourth, mechanical removal of dead, diseased, deformed, poisonous or noxious vegetation and harmful pests is permitted. Beyond tree cutting, the same subsection requires built-upon area or stormwater control for the cluster project to stay within the limit that applies to its watershed zone, certified by a North Carolina-registered engineer, with all built-upon area sited to minimize runoff and concentrated flow into receiving waters. Where the development forms an incorporated property owners' association, title to the common area transfers to that association for management; where it does not incorporate, a maintenance agreement covering the undivided common-area interest must be recorded with each property deed. G), not a stand-alone tree ordinance, so it only reaches cluster and PUD common area, not tree removal generally across the county.