Grant County, WI Landscaping Rules: Tree Removal & Heritage Trees (2026)

Article VII of the Shoreland Protection Ordinance deals with vegetation. Section 316-28 states the purpose: to protect natural scenic beauty, fish and wildlife habitat, and water quality, with standards that consider sound forestry and soil conservation practices and the effect of vegetation removal on soil erosion and the flow of effluents, sediments and nutrients. Section 316-29 designates land from the ordinary high-water mark to a minimum of 35 feet inland as a vegetative buffer zone and prohibits removal of vegetation there except as follows. The County can allow routine maintenance of vegetation.

It can allow removal of trees and shrubs to create access and viewing corridors, and the code prints a viewing corridor of at least 35 feet wide for every 100 feet of shoreline frontage, running contiguously for the entire maximum width of shoreline frontage owned. It can allow removal of trees and shrubs on a parcel with 10 or more acres of forested land when consistent with the forestry management practices described in the Department publication Wisconsin Forest Management Guidelines (Publication FR-226). It can allow removal to manage exotic or invasive species, damaged vegetation, vegetation that must be removed to control disease, or vegetation creating an imminent safety hazard, but whatever is removed must be replaced by replanting in the same area as soon as practicable.

Subsection E allows additional vegetation management by permit, under detailed plans approved by the County that control erosion by limiting sedimentation into the water body, improve the plant community by replanting, and maintain and monitor the restored area, with an enforceable restriction to preserve it. Beyond the 35-foot area, § 316-30 allows cutting out to the outer limits of the shoreland when accomplished using accepted forest management and soil conservation practices which protect water quality. Under the mitigation table in § 316-50C(4), establishing or restoring a shoreland buffer at least 35 feet from the ordinary high-water mark with native trees, native shrubs and grasses earns 5.0 points.