Hamburg Village, NY Landscaping Rules: Tree Trimming (2026)

Chapter 225, Trees, was adopted by the Board of Trustees of the Village of Hamburg on 2-18-1997 as a policy for managing the urban forest on public land and, if advantageous, on private land. The Department of Public Works is authorized under § 225-3A to manage plantings in the right-of-way, development strip, tree lawn or street lawn, and street medians are treated the same way. Pruning is a public duty: § 225-3O says that besides emergency or resident-requested pruning, annual pruning of public trees must be scheduled and accomplished by the Department of Public Works, assisted by the Environmental Commission, with attention to pruning newly planted trees on a two-year cycle. The section names emergency and resident-requested pruning as categories separate from the annual cycle.

The restriction on everyone else is § 225-3Q. The Village continues to remove dead, dying or dangerous trees in public places, as determined by the Superintendent of Public Works, and all others are restrained from removing, planting, pruning or treating trees in public places. Section 225-3I adds that no person shall plant any tree in any street in the village except at the places and in the manner directed by the Board of Trustees.

Permission requests carry a cost. Section 203-22A requires an indemnity bond, in an amount determined by the Board of Trustees, with applications to the Board or any Village officer for consent or permission to plant, trim, cut or remove any tree or part of a tree, and § 203-22B makes any such consent revocable by the Board of Trustees or another authorized Village official at any time. Street trees are planted with their initial bifurcation or lowest branches at least six feet above ground level (§ 225-3J), which is a planting specification for new trees, not a pruning rule for owners. Trees on private land that are dead, dying, dangerous or diseased fall under § 182-13 instead. This page covers the Code of the Village of Hamburg only, not the Town of Hamburg.