Blue Hill, NE Landscaping Rules: Tree Removal & Heritage Trees (2026)

Section 3-127, Injury to Trees, protects trees standing within Blue Hill's corporate limits from unauthorized cutting: it is unlawful for any person, purposely or carelessly and without lawful authority, to cut down, carry away, injure, break down, or destroy any tree planted or growing in the city, or its fruit. The section singles out public service companies (utilities running lines near trees): before trimming or cutting down a tree except on property it owns and controls, the company must apply to the City Council, and only a written council permit constitutes lawful authority to do the work.

A companion provision, § 3-129, Dead or Hazard Tree Removal, gives the city the right to remove any tree within the city limits that is dead or has been declared a hazard, defining "hazard trees" as those with severe structural defects or splits. Under that section the city notifies the owner, but removal responsibility and cost fall to the owner, who must act within time limits set by the community forest manager. A related section, § 3-128, separately declares dead or diseased trees a nuisance and lays out a 30-day notice-and-hearing abatement process with cost assessment against the property, tracing to Neb.

Rev. §18-1720 and amended by Ordinance No. 413 on 3/7/95. Together the sections mean a resident cannot simply remove a boulevard or public-adjacent tree without authority, while a genuinely hazardous or dead tree becomes the owner's removal obligation once the city flags it.