Sandy, UT Landscaping Rules: Tree Trimming (2026)

Section 21-25-3, the Tree Stewardship Ordinance, assigns citizens and property owners specific duties for trees in the parkstrips abutting their property, except where the City maintains that parkstrip directly. Among those duties, owners must periodically water and fertilize City trees, protect them from damage by mowers, trimmers, and snow blowers, keep the species and placement consistent with the Streetscape Plan, and notify the Urban Forester of any hazard tree. The clearance duty is explicit: owners must keep branches overhanging a public access sidewalk pruned to eight feet above the sidewalk, and branches overhanging a road pruned to 14 feet above the road.

An Urban Forester, working with the Community Development, Parks and Recreation, and Public Works Departments, supervises the ordinance, manages City trees long-term, and reviews the Streetscape Plan and specifications for effectiveness. The City, in turn, handles pruning of trees in City-owned parks, on City building grounds, and in City-maintained rights-of-way and easements, and removes City trees or limbs determined to be hazards after notifying property owners. Where a hazard tree exists on private property, responsibility to mitigate, abate, remove, or correct it falls on the property owner and anyone else controlling the property; the code classifies any hazard tree as a public nuisance in its own right.