Caddo Parish, LA Landscaping Rules: Tree Trimming (2026)

Section 10.5 of the Caddo Parish Unified Development Code, covering tree planting, maintenance, and removal on street rights-of-way and other public grounds, includes two specific trimming-related standards. Subsection D flatly makes it unlawful for any person to top a tree or cut back its crown to stubs when the tree stands in a street right-of-way or on other public grounds; topping refers to indiscriminately hacking back the main branches to stumps rather than pruning with a plan, a practice arborists treat as damaging to a tree's long-term health and structure.

Subsection F addresses line-of-sight problems that improper tree placement or overgrowth can create: trees may not be planted in a way that conceals a fire hydrant from the street or that impedes the line of sight on any street, protecting both firefighting access and driver visibility at intersections and curves. These trimming rules sit alongside the parish's own reserved authority in Section 10.5.E to prune, maintain, or remove trees on public grounds whenever they interfere with street lighting, block a traffic control device, or need attention to preserve the grounds, and alongside the exemption in Section 10.5.G for storm-damaged trees where standard pruning practice would be impractical.

Utility companies keep a separate carve-out under Section 10.5.H to prune or remove trees encroaching on their electric, telephone, cable, gas, sewer, or water infrastructure, and the electric utility provider files an annual vegetation management plan with the Louisiana Public Service Commission addressing planned circuit trimming under Section 10.5.J. Taken together, the article's trimming standards are aimed at right-of-way and public-grounds trees rather than trimming on private residential lots, and they focus on prohibiting damaging or hazard-creating cuts rather than mandating a specific clearance height over the street or sidewalk.