Noblesville, IN Landscaping Rules: Tree Removal & Heritage Trees (2026)

Noblesville's Unified Development Ordinance ties tree removal on a development site to its permitting process rather than leaving it unregulated. Under § 159.192(A), anyone proposing site development, redevelopment, grading, excavation or new construction must submit a Natural Area Tree Preservation Plan before work starts, prepared with an arborist, landscape architect or horticulturalist and inventorying every tree six inches or more in diameter, showing which trees, shrubs and dense growth areas are to be preserved and which are to be removed; the Director of Planning and Development has to approve that plan.

Section 159.192(E) then locks in protection during construction: a limit-of-disturbance line and temporary fencing marked 'TREE PRESERVATION ZONE' must go up before any land disturbance begins, no vehicles, machinery, chemicals or construction materials can enter that zone, and mature trees kept on the plan cannot be topped. Critically, § 159.192(E)(k) bars removing any trees, vegetation or shrubs on the site until an improvement location permit has actually been issued, so demolition-before-permitting is not an option. If a tree the plan designates for preservation dies within five years of project completion, § 159.192(E)(j) requires the owner, developer or association to replace it within 180 days with a tree of equal preservation value, calculated from a table keyed to the removed tree's diameter, ranging from a one-to-one replacement for small trees up to four times the diameter for trees over 16 inches. Saved trees also earn credit against the project's required landscaping under § 159.192(D).