Commerce City, CO Landscaping Rules: Tree Removal & Heritage Trees (2026)

Sec. 21-7514(4) defines a significant tree as any existing tree greater than eight inches in caliper and requires it to be preserved to the maximum extent feasible during development, with every landscape plan identifying each significant tree's location, species, size and condition and labeling whether the applicant intends to remove, transplant or protect it. A significant tree that comes down has to be replaced under Sec. 21-7514(4)(a): the applicant hires a qualified landscape appraiser, values the lost tree using the most recent methods published by the Council of Tree and Landscape Appraisers, and plants replacement trees on the same development site sized to match the loss.

Table VII-16 sets the baseline ratio at 1:1 caliper for a canopy shade tree, an ornamental tree, or an evergreen, meaning a removed tree's caliper inches have to be matched inch-for-inch in the replacement planting. Protected trees the applicant is keeping get construction-phase safeguards: no cutting or filling deeper than four inches within the tree's drip line without an arborist's or forester's sign-off, orange protective fencing at least four feet high set back six feet from the trunk or half the drip line, whichever is greater, during construction, and any utility or irrigation trench deeper than six inches must be bored under the root system rather than cut through it, at a minimum 24-inch depth scaled to the tree's diameter under Table VII-17.

Trees that are dead, diseased, a safety hazard, an intersection sightline obstruction, or on the nuisance-species list in Sec. 21-7514(4)(c) are exempt from the preservation and replacement duty.