Spotsylvania County, VA Landscaping Rules: Tree Removal & Heritage Trees (2026)

Chapter 6A, the Chesapeake Bay Preservation ordinance, protects the resource protection area (RPA) that surrounds perennial streams, tidal wetlands and tidal shores in the county, including a 100-foot buffer of vegetation measured landward from the water. Sec. 6A-12(c) makes clear the buffer cannot be reduced in width and treats it as delivering a 75 percent reduction in sediment and a 40 percent reduction in nutrients reaching the water, so existing vegetation in the buffer cannot be cleared or disturbed except with the Administrator's prior sign-off.

Sec. 6A-12(d) lists the only situations where the Administrator can approve removal: cutting to open reasonable sight lines or vistas (trees must be removed at ground level, not grubbed out, and replaced with equally effective vegetation), building an erosion-controlled access path, removing dead, diseased or dying trees and noxious species like Johnson grass, kudzu or multiflora rose, general woodlot management, and shoreline erosion-control projects. Mature trees must be preserved and pruned instead of removed whenever site conditions allow, and any cutting for sight lines has to use the fewest trees feasible.

On agricultural land, the buffer can effectively narrow if approved best-management practices are documented with the Tri-County City Soil and Water Conservation District. This buffer rule applies only to land within the mapped RPA along the county's Bay-preservation waters, not to trees countywide; ordinary residential lots outside the RPA are not covered by Sec. 6A-12. Property owners planning to clear brush or trees near a stream should check with the county's environmental codes office before cutting to confirm whether the parcel falls inside the buffer.