Hutto, TX Landscaping Rules: Tree Trimming (2026)

Section 6.02.403(c) amends Section 302.12 of the 2018 International Property Maintenance Code to add Hutto-specific tree rules. It first requires that dead trees, shrubs, or plants that are hazardous to persons or property be removed, defining a plant as dead once it has lost more than 75 percent of its living foliage. It then sets the minimum clearance of trees in sidewalk areas: it is unlawful for an owner or occupant to maintain or permit limbs to overhang or grow above the area between the property line and the curbline of an abutting street unless those limbs, branches, and foliage are trimmed to a minimum clearance of eight feet above the street level at the nearest curbline.

Finally, the section gives the City Manager authority to remove trees or plants found between the opposite curblines of any city street and to trim branches, limbs, or foliage that overhang or grow above that area, so as to maintain the same eight-foot clearance at the curbline, graduating up to a 13-foot clearance at the center of the street. This authority lets the city act directly in the right-of-way rather than only issuing notices to the abutting property owner, and it sits alongside the outdoor-storage and fencing rules in the same amended article, all enforced by the same Development Services code-enforcement process.