Commerce City, CO Landscaping Rules: Tree Trimming (2026)

Section 6-2012(b)(5), Encroachment of vegetation on public spaces, requires the owner or occupant of any property to cut, trim, prune or remove trees and other vegetation on the extended property, the lot plus the adjacent right-of-way to the street centerline, so it does not interfere with public travel. Low vegetation, other than trees, cannot encroach on the plane of a public sidewalk or roadway at all. Tree branches get a numeric clearance: not lower than ten feet above a public sidewalk and not less than fifteen feet above the travel lanes of a street or alley.

The same subsection bars branches or foliage from obscuring street name signs, traffic signs, traffic control devices or sight triangles, and requires removal of any branch or tree that is broken, hanging, decayed, or otherwise threatens public property or safe use of it. Because this duty sits inside the nuisance chapter, a violation is a civil infraction under section 6-1003, prosecutable in municipal court or before the administrative hearing officer on a preponderance-of-the-evidence standard. The city is not required to wait: under section 6-1004 it can abate a hazardous branch or tree on public property, or one posing an imminent danger, without prior notice or a hearing, then recover the abatement cost plus a fifteen percent administrative fee through the section 3-2103 collection process.

Where no chapter-specific dollar amount is set, the general penalty in Section 1-5 applies: up to a three-hundred-dollar fine, up to ninety days in jail, or both, with each day of a continuing violation treated as a separate offense.