Collier County, FL Landscaping Rules: Tree Removal & Heritage Trees (2026)

The rule sits in Land Development Code Sec. 3.05.01, which opens with its purpose: protect vegetation by regulating its removal, help control flooding, soil erosion, dust, heat, air pollution and noise, and maintain property, aesthetic and health values. Subsection B is the operative ban. It reaches any individual, firm, partnership, corporation, or unit of federal, state, County, or municipal government, so a public agency is held to the same permit requirement as a homeowner unless an exemption applies. Placing additional fill counts along with removal, which is why the permit comes in a combined vegetation removal and fill version. Mowing nonprotected vegetation to satisfy other LDC sections is expressly outside the section.

The County Manager or designee decides each application under Sec. 3.05.03. An approved permit is valid for no more than 180 days. An extension must be requested before the original permit expires and needs good cause shown in a written application. The review fee is set by resolution of the Board of County Commissioners. Conditions on a permit can only concern how vegetation that stays is designated and protected.

Sec. 3.05.05 lists when a permit can be issued. The grounds include vegetation that is a safety hazard to pedestrian or vehicular traffic, utilities or an existing structure; diseased or unhealthy vegetation judged by standard horticultural practices; removal allowed by a final local development order; mechanical removal of prohibited exotics; a single-family lot where the principal structure cannot be built or access is impeded; and protected vegetation posing an imminent threat to human safety or an adjacent building.

Sec. 3.05.02 carves out exemptions. On single-family lots with no bald eagle nest, no permit is needed to clear 1 acre or less of protected vegetation once a building permit has issued, or once the house is built and the total cleared area stays within one acre, provided other agency permits are in hand. That exemption never covers a specimen tree, and it does not apply to undeveloped coastal barrier islands or the ST, ACSC-ST and RFMU overlay districts. Licensed tree farms, state-governed mangrove trimming and hand removal of prohibited exotics are also exempt.