Spalding County, GA Landscaping Rules: Tree Removal & Heritage Trees (2026)

Article 17 of the Zoning Ordinance's Appendix IV creates the Planned Development District (PDD) and sets separate development standards for planned residential, neighborhood, shopping center and industrial projects. Sec. 1708, governing planned shopping center development, requires under item P that 'a minimum of twenty (20) percent of all existing trees with a diameter exceeding ten (10) inches shall be retained,' and specifies the tree-retention requirement is 'in addition to' any landscape area planting required under Sec. 2206(C)-(D), so a developer cannot substitute new plantings for saving the required share of existing large trees.

Sec. 1709, governing planned industrial development, imposes the identical 20 percent retention standard on trees over ten inches in diameter at item I, again layered on top of the separate landscape-area requirements. Neither section carves out an exemption for site constraints; the ordinance simply sets a flat retention percentage measured by trunk diameter. The requirement sits alongside other Article 17 development standards, such as the topography-preservation clause requiring development to be 'compatible with topography of the land and preserve any unusual topographic or natural features,' and outside-storage and screening rules that use plantings and masonry walls to buffer commercial and industrial uses from neighboring property.

Because both sections are part of the Zoning Ordinance rather than the county's separate Landscaping and Tree Preservation Ordinance, Appendix K, which covers multi-family, commercial, institutional and industrial redevelopment more broadly through a plan-review and bonding process, the two sections work as a floor: a planned shopping center or industrial project must clear the 20 percent retention test under Article 17 in addition to whatever Appendix K plan review otherwise requires for its landscape plan.