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

Sec. 45-501(b)(2) of the Land Development Code lists the removal of trees as a de minimis development activity, exempt from the county's concurrency review altogether, which is the clearest sign the county does not gate ordinary tree removal behind a permit. What the code regulates instead is what happens when a tree gets in the way of a development standard: Sec. 45-514(a)(1) authorizes the planning department to approve administrative deviations, without a variance hearing, specifically to protect any tree with a caliper of six inches or greater.

For a residential building or accessory structure, the department can cut the front or rear setback by up to 25 percent and the side setback by up to 50 percent if that is what it takes to save the tree; for a nonresidential use next to residential land, a setback can shrink by up to 15 feet as long as the freed-up strip becomes a ten-foot landscaped buffer with a six-foot opaque screen and trees planted 30 feet on center. Sec. 45-514(a)(1)c-d extends the same logic to parking, letting the department trim required parking counts by up to ten percent or one space, and parking-space depth by up to a foot and a half.

Sec. 45-514(b) goes further and lets the director of public works modify road, sidewalk, drainage and utility spacing standards in a subdivision for the same purpose, protecting trees and native plant communities during the engineering design phase rather than just at the building envelope.