Cupertino, CA Landscaping Rules: Tree Trimming (2026)

220 addresses the shared responsibility between the City and abutting residents for landscape within the right-of-way, and lists specific conditions the City treats as unlawful nuisances: a tree with limbs overhanging the right-of-way where the lowest part sits less than eight and one half feet above the right-of-way, landscape overhanging the street, gutter, or sidewalk or obstructing a municipal utility facility or fire hydrant, and any landscape that obscures a motorist's or pedestrian's view of intersecting traffic or of traffic control devices. The City Engineer investigates reported obstructions and gives written notice to the responsible property owner or occupant to remove the nuisance, and it becomes unlawful for that owner to fail to clear the obstruction within five business days of the notice.

Where the City Engineer finds an obstruction poses an immediate peril to the public or to traffic, the City Manager may summarily remove it and must then send the owner written notice of the action taken, with removal costs charged to the abutting property owner. 110's nuisance provisions and this same encroachment chapter. 090 requires any public utility to obtain a City Manager permit before trimming, bracing, or removing a tree, must give the Tree/Right of Way Supervisor at least ten working days' notice before any work meeting the definition of tree removal, and must perform all work to International Society of Arboricultural Standards.