Milpitas, CA Landscaping Rules: Tree Trimming (2026)

Section X-2-4.03 of the Milpitas Municipal Code requires anyone other than City personnel to get a Public Works Department permit before trimming an Approved Street Tree. The Department issues the permit once it finds the pruning is necessary and the proposed method acceptable. Three narrow categories of work are exempt: removing sucker growth or watersprouts, cutting low-hanging branches under 4 inches in diameter that are causing an obstruction, and any pruning that removes less than 10 percent of the tree's canopy.

Section X-2-2.13 defines Tree Pruning itself as the removal of diseased, dead, dying, decayed, interfering or obstructing branches, or training young trees to control growth, and it caps ordinary pruning at no more than 25 percent of the tree's canopy within a single growing season. Cutting beyond that, or Tree Topping, the removal of large branches to a stub under Section X-2-2.16, is not an approved pruning method for City street trees or protected trees at all; the code classifies topping as tree removal, which triggers the removal-permit and replacement rules in Section X-2-4.02 rather than the pruning permit.

The Public Works Director also holds independent power under Section X-2-8.01 to authorize emergency pruning of any Approved Street Tree, Unapproved Street Tree, or other planting in the right-of-way without prior notice to the property owner, whenever the Director determines in his or her sole discretion that the tree poses an immediate danger to public health, safety, or property; the costs of that pruning are recovered from the responsible owner under Sections X-2-9.01 and X-2-10.